When Your Efforts Are Recognized Quotes

Friends are a strange, volatile, contradictory, yet sticky phenomenon. They are made, crafted, shaped, molded, created by focused effort and intent. And yet, true friendship, once recognized, in its essence is effortless. Best friends are formed by time. Everyone is someone's friend, even when they think they are all alone. If the friendship is not working, your heart will know. It's when you start being less than perfectly honest and perfectly earnest in your dealings. And it's when the things you do together no longer feel right. However, sometimes it takes more effort to make it work after all. Stick around long enough to become someone's best friend.

The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty. The more indifferent people are to politics, to the interests of others, the more obsessed they become with their own faces. The individualism of our time. Not being able to fall asleep and not allowing oneself to move: the marital bed. If high culture is coming to an end, it is also the end of you and your paradoxical ideas, because paradox as such belongs to high culture and not to childish prattle. You remind me of the young men who supported the Nazis or communists not out of cowardice or out of opportunism but out of an excess of intelligence. For nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of nonthought… You are the brilliant ally of your own gravediggers. In the world of highways, a beautiful landscape means: an island of beauty connected by a long line with other islands of beauty. How to live in a world with which you disagree? How to live with people when you neither share their suffering nor their joys? When you know that you don’t belong among them?... our century refuses to acknowledge anyone’s right to disagree with the world…All that remains of such a place is the memory, the ideal of a cloister, the dream of a cloister… Humor can only exist when people are still capable of recognizing some border between the important and the unimportant. And nowadays this border has become unrecognizable. The majority of people lead their existence within a small idyllic circle bounded by their family, their home, and their work... They live in a secure realm somewhere between good and evil. They are sincerely horrified by the sight of a killer. And yet all you have to do is remove them from this peaceful circle and they, too, turn into murderers, without quite knowing how it happened. The longing for order is at the same time a longing for death, because life is an incessant disruption of order. Or to put it the other way around: the desire for order is a virtuous pretext, an excuse for virulent misanthropy. A long time a go a certain Cynic philosopher proudly paraded around Athens in a moth-eaten coat, hoping that everyone would admire his contempt for convention. When Socrates met him, he said: Through the hole in your coat I see your vanity. Your dirt, too, dear sir, is self-indulgent and your self-indulgence is dirty. You are always living below the level of true existence, you bitter weed, you anthropomorphized vat of vinegar! You’re full of acid, which bubbles inside you like an alchemist’s brew. Your highest wish is to be able to see all around you the same ugliness as you carry inside yourself. That’s the only way you can feel for a few moments some kind of peace between yourself and the world. That’s because the world, which is beautiful, seems horrible to you, torments you and excludes you. If the novel is successful, it must necessarily be wiser than its author. This is why many excellent French intellectuals write mediocre novels. They are always more intelligent than their books. By a certain age, coincidences lose their magic, no longer surprise, become run-of-the-mill. Any new possibility that existence acquires, even the least likely, transforms everything about existence.

The hardest part of letting go is the "uncertainty"--when you are afraid that the moment you let go of someone you will hate yourself when you find out how close you were to winning their affection. Every time you give yourself hope you steal away a part of your time, happiness and future. However, once in a while you wake up to this realization and you have to hold on tightly to this truth because your heart will tear away the foundation of your logic, by making excuses for why this person doesn't try as much as you. The truth is this: Real love is simple. We are the ones that make it complicated. A part of disconnecting is recognizing the difference between being desired and being valued. When someone loves you they will never keep you waiting, give their attention and affection away to others, allow you to continue hurting, or ignore what you have gone through for them. On the other hand, a person that desires you can't see your pain, only what they can get from you with minimal effort in return. They let you risk everything, while they guard their heart and reap the benefits of your feelings. We make so many excuses for the people we fall in love with and they make up even more to remain one foot in the door. However, the truth is God didn't create you to be treated as an option or to be disrespected repeatedly. He wants you to close the door. If someone loves you and wants to be in your life no obstacle will keep them from you. Remember, you are royalty, not a beggar.

The exegesis Fat labored on month after month struck me as a Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one — in this case an attempt by a beleaguered mind to make sense out of the inscrutable. Perhaps this is the bottom line to mental illness: incomprehensible events occur; your life becomes a bin for hoax-like fluctuations of what used to be reality. And not only that — as if that weren't enough — but you, like Fat, ponder forever over these fluctuations in an effort to order them into a coherency, when in fact the only sense they make is the sense you impose on them, out of necessity to restore everything into shapes and processes you can recognize. The first thing to depart in mental illness is the familiar. And what takes its place is bad news because not only can you not understand it, you also cannot communicate it to other people. The madman experiences something, but what it is or where it comes from he does not know.

I know I’m ready to give feedback when: I’m ready to sit next to you rather than across from you; I’m willing to put the problem in front of us rather than between us (or sliding it toward you); I’m ready to listen, ask questions, and accept that I may not fully understand the issue; I want to acknowledge what you do well instead of picking apart your mistakes; I recognize your strengths and how you can use them to address your challenges; I can hold you accountable without shaming or blaming you; I’m willing to own my part; I can genuinely thank you for your efforts rather than criticize you for your failings; I can talk about how resolving these challenges will lead to your growth and opportunity; and I can model the vulnerability and openness that I expect to see from you.

Interior decoration is not just one's artistic efforts, but it is that which your home (even if it is just a room) is. If you are 'decorating' with clothes draped on every chair, with scratched and broken furniture- it is still your interior decoration! Your home expresses you to other people, and they cannot see or feel your daydreams of what you expect to make in that misty future, when all the circumstances are what you think they must be before you will find it worthwhile to start. You have started, whether you recognize that fact or not! We foolish mortals sometimes live through years not realizing how short life is, and that TODAY is your life.

We have only minimal control over the rewards for our work and effort—other people’s validation, recognition, rewards. So what are we going to do? Not be kind, not work hard, not produce, because there is a chance it wouldn’t be reciprocated? C’mon. Think of all the activists who will find that they can only advance their cause so far. The leaders who are assassinated before their work is done. The inventors whose ideas languish “ahead of their time.” According to society’s main metrics, these people were not rewarded for their work. Should they have not done it? Yet in ego, every one of us has considered doing precisely that. If that is your attitude, how do you intend to endure tough times? What if you’re ahead of the times? What if the market favors some bogus trend? What if your boss or your clients don’t understand? It’s far better when doing good work is sufficient. In other words, the less attached we are to outcomes the better. When fulfilling our own standards is what fills us with pride and self-respect. When the effort—not the results, good or bad—is enough. With ego, this is not nearly sufficient. No, we need to be recognized. We need to be compensated. Especially problematic is the fact that, often, we get that. We are praised, we are paid, and we start to assume that the two things always go together. The “expectation hangover” inevitably ensues.

Perhaps this is the bottom line to mental illness: incomprehensible events occur; your life becomes a bin for hoax-like fluctuations of what used to be reality. And not only that—as if that weren't enough—but you, like Fat, ponder forever over these fluctuations in an effort to order them into a coherency, when in fact the only sense they make is the sense you impose on them, out of the necessity to restore everything into shapes and processes you can recognize. The first thing to depart in mental illness is the familiar. And what takes its place is bad news because not only can you not understand it, you also cannot communicate it to other people. The madman experiences something, but what it is or where it comes from he does not know.

Jesus understood that God does not play by our rules. His God is a generous God, who not only allows the sun to shine on both the just and the unjust, but also gives us the ability to live into what should be rather than what is. The parables help us with their lessons about generosity: sharing joy, providing for others, recognizing the potential of small investments. His God wants us to be better than we are, because we have the potential to be. We are made but a little lower than the divine (Ps. 8.6; see Heb. 2.7); we should start acting in a more heavenly matter. Those who pray, “Your kingdom come,” might want to take some responsibility in the process, and so work in partnership with God. We too are to seek the lost and make every effort to find them. Indeed, we are not only to seek; we are to take notice of who might be lost, even when immediately present. The rich man ignores Lazarus at his gate, and the father of the prodigal ignored the elder son in the field. For the former, it is too late; for the latter, whether it is too late or not we do not know. But we learn from their stories. Don’t wait. Look now. Look hard. Count.

When people fail to recognize your work just don't give up yet. Because it's not always about the recognition, sometimes it's about the "passion" that we hold onto..!!!

Perseverance doesn’t mean continuing to bang your head against a wall and expecting it to move. It often means recognizing when a strategy isn’t working and shifting your efforts.

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

If you really want to be right (or at least improve the odds of being right), you have to start by acknowledging your fallibility, deliberately seeking out your mistakes, and figuring out what caused you to make them. This truth has long been recognized in domains where being right is not just a zingy little ego boost but a matter of real urgency: in transportation, industrial design, food and drug safety, nuclear energy, and so forth. When they are at their best, such domains have a productive obsession with error. They try to imagine every possible reason a mistake could occur, they prevent as many of them as possible, and they conduct exhaustive postmortems on the ones that slip through. By embracing error as inevitable, these industries are better able to anticipate mistakes, prevent them, and respond appropriately when those prevention efforts fail.

How do you see your own Jewish identity? I am proud of being a Jew-although I must admit it took me practically a lifetime to get there. I have suffered from the low self-esteem that is the bane of the assimilationist Jew. This is a heavy load that I could shed only when I recognized my success. I identify being a Jew with being in a minority. I believe that there is such a thing as a Jewish genius; one need only look at the Jewish achievements in science, in economic life, or in the arts. These were the results of Jews' efforts to transcend their minority status, and to achieve something universal. Jews have learned to consider every question from many different viewpoints, even the most contradictory ones. Being in the minority, they are practically forced into critical thinking. If there is anything of this Jewish genius in me, it is simply the ability to think critically. To that extent, Jewishness is an essential element of my personality and, as I said, I am very proud of that.

(...) psychiatrists today recognize the contortionist's act that was required of women in an age when they were expected to stifle their own healthiest impulses. (...) "To be able to renounce your own achievements without feeling that you were sacrificing requires constant effort. To be lovely and unaggressive, a woman spends a lifetime keeping hostile or resentful impulses down. Even healthy self-assertion is often sacrificed since it may be mistaken by hostility. Therefore, [women] often repress their initiative, give up their aspirations, and unfortunately end up excessively dependent with a deep sense of insecurity and uncertainty about their abilities and their worth.

As actor and comedian Lily Tomlin once said, “The road to success is always under construction.” So don’t allow yourself to be detoured from getting to your ONE Thing. Pave your way with the right people and place. BIG IDEAS Start saying “no.” Always remember that when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to everything else. It’s the essence of keeping a commitment. Start turning down other requests outright or saying, “No, for now” to distractions so that nothing detracts you from getting to your top priority. Learning to say no can and will liberate you. It’s how you’ll find the time for your ONE Thing. Accept chaos. Recognize that pursuing your ONE Thing moves other things to the back burner. Loose ends can feel like snares, creating tangles in your path. This kind of chaos is unavoidable. Make peace with it. Learn to deal with it. The success you have accomplishing your ONE Thing will continually prove you made the right decision. Manage your energy. Don’t sacrifice your health by trying to take on too much. Your body is an amazing machine, but it doesn’t come with a warranty, you can’t trade it in, and repairs can be costly. It’s important to manage your energy so you can do what you must do, achieve what you want to achieve, and live the life you want to live. Take ownership of your environment. Make sure that the people around you and your physical surroundings support your goals. The right people in your life and the right physical environment on your daily path will support your efforts to get to your ONE Thing. When both are in alignment with your ONE Thing, they will supply the optimism and physical lift you need to make your ONE Thing happen. Screenwriter Leo Rosten pulled everything together for us when he said, “I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” Live with Purpose, Live by Priority, and Live for Productivity. Follow these three for the same reason you make the three commitments and avoid the four thieves—because you want to leave your mark. You want your life to matter. 18

Duroy, who felt light hearted that evening, said with a smile: "You are gloomy to-day, dear master." The poet replied: "I am always so, young man, so will you be in a few years. Life is a hill. As long as one is climbing up one looks towards the summit and is happy, but when one reaches the top one suddenly perceives the descent before one, and its bottom, which is death. One climbs up slowly, but one goes down quickly. At your age a man is happy. He hopes for many things, which, by the way, never come to pass. At mine, one no longer expects anything - but death." Duroy began to laugh: "You make me shudder all over." Norbert de Varenne went on: "No, you do not understand me now, but later on you will remember what I am saying to you at this moment. A day comes, and it comes early for many, when there is an end to mirth, for behind everything one looks at one sees death. You do not even understand the word. At your age it means nothing; at mine it is terrible. Yes, one understands it all at once, one does not know how or why, and then everything in life changes its aspect. For fifteen years I have felt death assail me as if I bore within me some gnawing beast. I have felt myself decaying little by little, month by month, hour by hour, like a house crumbling to ruin. Death has disfigured me so completely that I do not recognize myself. I have no longer anything about me of myself - of the fresh, strong man I was at thirty. I have seen death whiten my black hairs, and with what skillful and spiteful slowness. Death has taken my firm skin, my muscles, my teeth, my whole body of old, only leaving me a despairing soul, soon to be taken too. Every step brings me nearer to death, every movemebt, every breath hastens his odious work. To breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work, dream, everything we do is to die. To live, in short, is to die. Oh, you will realize this. If you stop and think for a moment you will understand. What do you expect? Love? A few more kisses and you will be impotent. Then money? For what? Women? Much fun that will be! In order to eat a lot and grow fat and lie awake at night suffering from gout? And after that? Glory? What use is that when it does not take the form of love? And after that? Death is always the end. I now see death so near that I often want to stretch my arms to push it back. It covers the earth and fills the universe. I see it everywhere. The insects crushed on the path, the falling leaves, the white hair in a friend's head, rend my heart and cry to me, 'Behold it!' It spoils for me all I do, all I see, all that I eat and drink, all that I love; the bright moonlight, the sunrise, the broad ocean, the noble rivers, and the soft summer evening air so sweet to breath." He walked on slowly, dreaming aloud, almost forgetting that he had a listener: "And no one ever returns - never. The model of a statue may be preserved, but my body, my face, my thoughts, my desires will never reappear again. And yet millions of beings will be born with a nose, eyes, forehead, cheeks, and mouth like me, and also a soul like me, without my ever returning, without even anything recognizable of me appearing in these countless different beings. What can we cling to? What can we believe in? All religions are stupid, with their puerile morality and their egotistical promises, monstrously absurd. Death alone is certain." "Think of that, young man. Think of it for days, and months and years, and life will seem different to you. Try to get away from all the things that shut you in. Make a superhuman effort to emerge alive from your own body, from your own interests, from your thoughts, from humanity in general, so that your eyes may be turned in the opposite direction. Then you understand how unimportant is the quarrel between Romanticism and Realism, or the Budget debates.

After identifying when you’re having fixed mindset thoughts, Dweck suggests the next steps are to recognize that you have a choice in how you interpret the challenge, setbacks, or criticism; then “talk back” to the fixed voice with a growth mindset voice. Examples she gives are, “If I don’t try, I automatically fail”; “Others who succeeded before me had passion and put forth effort”; and, “If I don’t take responsibility, I can’t fix it.

Scared?” Terrified. “Of you? Nah. If you grow claws, I might get my sword, but I’ve fought you in your human shape.” It took all my will to shrug. “You aren’t that impressive.” He cleared the distance between us in a single leap. I barely had time to jump to my feet. Steel fingers grasped my left wrist. His left arm clasped my waist. I fought, but he outmuscled me with ridiculous ease, pulling me close as if to tango. “Curran! Let . . . “ I recognized the angle of his hip but I could do nothing about it. He pulled me forward and flipped me in a classic hip-toss throw. Textbook perfect. I flew through the air, guided by his hands, and landed on my back. The air burst from my lungs in a startled gasp. Ow. “Impressed yet?” he asked with a big smile. Playing. He was playing. Not a real fight. He could’ve slammed me down hard enough to break my neck. Instead he had held me to the end, to make sure I landed right. He leaned forward a little. “Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I’d be blushing.” I gasped, trying to draw air into my lungs. “I could kill you right now. It wouldn’t take much. I think I’m actually embarrassed on your behalf. At least do some magic or something.” As you wish. I gasped and spat my new power word. “Osanda.” Kneel, Your Majesty. He grunted like a man trying to lift a crushing weight that fell on his shoulders. His face shook with strain. Ha-ha. He wasn’t the only one who got a boost from a flare. I got up to my feet with some leisure. Curran stood locked, the muscles of his legs bulging his sweatpants. He didn’t kneel. He wouldn’t kneel. I hit him with a power word in the middle of a bloody flare and it didn’t work. When he snapped out of it, he would probably kill me. All sorts of alarms blared in my head. My good sense screamed, Get out of the room, stupid! Instead I stepped close to him and whispered in his ear, “Still not impressed.” His eyebrows came together, as a grimace claimed his face. He strained, the muscles on his hard frame trembling with effort. With a guttural sigh, he straightened. I beat a hasty retreat to the rear of the room, passing Slayer on the way. I wanted to swipe it so bad, my palm itched. But the rules of the game were clear: no claws, no saber. The second I picked up the sword, I’d have signed my own death warrant. He squared his shoulders. “Shall we continue?” “It would be my pleasure.” He started toward me. I waited, light on my feet, ready to leap aside. He was stronger than a pair of oxen, and he’d try to grapple. If he got ahold of me, it would be over. If all else failed, I could always try the window. A forty-foot drop was a small price to pay to get away from him. Curran grabbed at me. I twisted past him and kicked his knee from the side. It was a good solid kick; I’d turned into it. It would’ve broken the leg of any normal human. “Cute,” Curran said, grabbed my arm, and casually threw me across the room. I went airborne for a second, fell, rolled, and came to my feet to be greeted by Curran’s smug face. “You’re fun to play with. You make a good mouse.” Mouse? “I was always kind of partial to toy mice.” He smiled. “Sometimes they’re filled with catnip. It’s a nice bonus.” “I’m not filled with catnip.” “Let’s find out.” He squared his shoulders and headed in my direction. Houston, we have a problem. Judging by the look in his eyes, a kick to the face simply wouldn’t faze him. “I can stop you with one word,” I said. He swiped me into a bear hug and I got an intimate insight into how a nut feels just before the nutcracker crushes it to pieces. “Do,” he said. “Wedding.” All humor fled his eyes. He let go and just like that, the game was over.

It was a pattern the Sisterhood had long recognized: the inevitable failure of slavery and peonage. You created a reservoir of hate. Implacable enemies. If you had no hope of exterminating all of these enemies, you dared not try. Temper your efforts by the sure awareness that oppression will make your enemies strong. The oppressed will have their day and heaven help the oppressor when that day comes. It was a two-edged blade. The oppressed always learned from and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence—rotes reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam.

In order to gain knowledge about a person through nonverbal pacifiers, there are a few guidelines you need to follow: (1) Recognize pacifying behaviors when they occur. I have provided you with all of the major pacifiers. As you make a concerted effort to spot these body signals, they will become increasingly easy to recognize in interactions with other people. (2) Establish a pacifying baseline for an individual. That way you can note any increase and/or intensity in that person’s pacifying behaviors and react accordingly. (3) When you see a person make a pacifying gesture, stop and ask yourself, “What caused him to do that?” You know the individual feels uneasy about something. Your job, as a collector of nonverbal intelligence, is to find out what that something is. (4) Understand that pacifying behaviors almost always are used to calm a person after a stressful event occurs. Thus, as a general principle, you can assume that if an individual is engaged in pacifying behavior, some stressful event or stimulus has preceded it and caused it to happen. (5) The ability to link a pacifying behavior with the specific stressor that caused it can help you better understand the person with whom you are interacting. (6) In certain circumstances you can actually say or do something to see if it stresses an individual (as reflected in an increase in pacifying behaviors) to better understand his thoughts and intentions. (7) Note what part of the body a person pacifies. This is significant, because the higher the stress, the greater the amount of facial or neck stroking is involved. (8) Remember, the greater the stress or discomfort, the greater the likelihood of pacifying behaviors to follow. Pacifiers are a great way to assess for comfort and discomfort. In a sense, pacifying behaviors are “supporting players” in our limbic reactions. Yet they reveal much about our emotional state and how we are truly feeling.

Here we’ll describe four signs that you have to disengage from your autonomous efforts and seek connection. Each of these emotions is a different form of hunger for connection—that is, they’re all different ways of feeling lonely: When you have been gaslit. When you’re asking yourself, “Am I crazy, or is there something completely unacceptable happening right now?” turn to someone who can relate; let them give you the reality check that yes, the gaslights are flickering. When you feel “not enough.” No individual can meet all the needs of the world. Humans are not built to do big things alone. We are built to do them together. When you experience the empty-handed feeling that you are just one person, unable to meet all the demands the world makes on you, helpless in the face of the endless, yawning need you see around you, recognize that emotion for what it is: a form of loneliness. ... When you’re sad. In the animated film Inside Out, the emotions in the head of a tween girl, Riley, struggle to cope with the exigencies of growing up.... When you are boiling with rage. Rage has a special place in women’s lives and a special role in the Bubble of Love. More, even, than sadness, many of us have been taught to swallow our rage, hide it even from ourselves. We have been taught to fear rage—our own, as well as others’—because its power can be used as a weapon. Can be. A chef’s knife can be used as a weapon. And it can help you prepare a feast. It’s all in how you use it. We don’t want to hurt anyone, and rage is indeed very, very powerful. Bring your rage into the Bubble with your loved ones’ permission, and complete the stress response cycle with them. If your Bubble is a rugby team, you can leverage your rage in a match or practice. If your Bubble is a knitting circle, you might need to get creative. Use your body. Jump up and down, get noisy, release all that energy, share it with others. “Yes!” say the people in your Bubble. “That was some bullshit you dealt with!” Rage gives you strength and energy and the urge to fight, and sharing that energy in the Bubble changes it from something potentially dangerous to something safe and potentially transformative.

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

But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:20-24). Renew your mind to the Word, and put on the new man! Ephesians 4:24 plainly reveals that your born-again spirit—the new man—was created after God in righteousness and true holiness. You need to recognize and acknowledge your true self in God’s mirror. Right now in your spirit, you are righteous and holy! At times, you might think, I’m getting holier, but in reality, you’re just referring to your actions in the physical realm. The degree of holiness you live outwardly may vary, but the nature of your born-again spirit is righteousness and true holiness. That’s why you must worship Him in spirit and truth! “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Your spirit is the part of you that completely changed. Old things passed away. All things became new. You cannot approach God unless you come to Him through the righteousness and true holiness of who you are in the spirit. You aren’t worthy to come into His presence based on the righteousness and holiness of your thoughts and actions. Even at your best, you still fall short of doing everything you should. Even when you’ve been seeking the Lord wholeheartedly, you still have negative and impure thoughts in your mind. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never measure up to God’s perfection through your own efforts in the physical, emotional, and mental realms.

She gives just enough hints about him to make you wonder why he became so villainous. And if he dies, I’ll never learnt the answer.” Oliver eyes her closely. “Perhaps he was born villainous.” “No one is born villainous.” “Oh?” he said with raised eyebrow. “So we’re all born good?” “Neither. We start as animals, with an animal’s needs and desires. It takes parents and teachers and other good examples to show us how to restrain those needs and desires, when necessary, for the greater good. But it’s still our choice whether to heed that education or to do as we please.” “For a woman who loves murder and mayhem, you’re quite the philosopher.” “I like to understand how things work. Why people behave as they do.” He digested that for a moment. “I happen to think that some of us, like Rockton, are born with a wicked bent.” She chose her words carefully. “That certainly provides Rockton with a convenient excuse for his behavior.” His features turned stony. “What do you mean?” “Being moral and disciplined is hard work. Being wicked requires no effort at all-one merely indulges every desire and impulse, no matter how hurtful or immoral. By claiming to be born wicked, Rockton ensures that he doesn’t have to struggle to be god. He can just protest that he can’t help himself.” “Perhaps he can’t,” he clipped out. “Or maybe he’s simply unwilling to fight his impulses. And I want to know the reason for that. That’s why I keep reading Minerva’s books.” Did Oliver actually believe he’d been born irredeemably wicked? How tragic! It lent a hopelessness to his life that helped to explain his mindless pursuit of pleasure. “I can tell you the reason for Rockton’s villainy.” Oliver rose to round the desk. Propping his hip on the edge near her, he reached out to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. A sweet shudder swept over her. Why must he have this effect on her? It simply wasn’t fair. “Oh?” she managed. “Rockton knows he can’t have everything he wants,” he said hoarsely, his hand drifting to her cheek. “He can’t have the heroine, for example. She would never tolerate his…wicked impulses. Yet he still wants her. And his wanting consumes him.” Her breath lodged in her throat. It had been days since he’d touched her, and she hadn’t forgotten what it was like for one minute. To have him this near, saying such things… She fought for control over her volatile emotions. “His wanting consumes him precisely because he can’t have her. If he thought he could, he wouldn’t want her after all.” “Not true.” His voice deepening, he stroked the line of her jaw with a tenderness that roused an ache in her chest. “Even Rockton recognizes when a woman is unlike any other. Her very goodness in the face of his villainy bewitches him. He thinks if he can just possess that goodness, then the dark cloud lying on his soul will lift, and he’ll have something other than villainy to sustain him.” “Then he’s mistaken.” Her pulse trebled as his finger swept the hollow of her throat. “The only person who can lift the dark cloud on his soul is himself.” He paused in his caress. “So he’s doomed, then?” “No!” Her gaze flew to his. “No one is doomed, and certainly not Rockton. There’s still hope for him. There is always hope.” His eyes burned with a feverish light, and before she could look away, he bent to kiss her. It was soft, tender…delicious. Someone moaned, she wasn’t sure who. All she knew was that his mouth was on hers again, molding it, tasting it, making her hungry in the way that only he seemed able to do. “Maria…” he breathed. Seizing her by the arms, he drew her up into his embrace. “My God, I’ve thought of nothing but you since that day in the carriage.

HAPPINESS: "Flourishing is a fact, not a feeling. We flourish when we grow and thrive. We flourish when we exercise our powers. We flourish when we become what we are capable of becoming...Flourishing is rooted in action..."happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect excellence"...a flourishing life is a life lived along lines of excellence...Flourishing is a condition that is created by the choices we make in the world we live in...Flourishing is not a virtue, but a condition; not a character trait, but a result. We need virtue to flourish, but virtue isn't enough. To create a flourishing life, we need both virtue and the conditions in which virtue can flourish...Resilience is a virtue required for flourishing, bur being resilient will not guarantee that we will flourish. Unfairness, injustice, and bad fortune will snuff our promising lives. Unasked-for pain will still come our way...We can build resilience and shape the world we live in. We can't rebuild the world...three primary kinds of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and happiness of excellence...people who are flourishing usually have all three kinds of happiness in their lives...Aristotle understood: pushing ourselves to grow, to get better, to dive deeper is at the heart of happiness...This is the happiness that goes hand in hand with excellence, with pursuing worthy goals, with growing mastery...It is about the exercise of powers. The most common mistake people make in thinking about the happiness of excellence is to focus on moments of achievement. They imagine the mountain climber on the summit. That's part of the happiness of excellence, and a very real part. What counts more, though, is not the happiness of being there, but the happiness of getting there. A mountain climber heads for the summit, and joy meets her along the way. You head for the bottom of the ocean, and joy meets you on the way down...you create joy along the way...the concept of flow, the kind of happiness that comes when we lose ourselves through complete absorption in a rewarding task...the idea of flow..."Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times...The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limit in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."...Joy, like sweat, is usually a byproduct of your activity, not your aim...A focus on happiness will not lead to excellence. A focus on excellence will, over time, lead to happiness. The pursuit of excellence leads to growth, mastery, and achievement. None of these are sufficient for happiness, yet all of them are necessary...the pull of purpose, the desire to feel "needed in this world" - however we fulfill that desire - is a very powerful force in a human life...recognize that the drive to live well and purposefully isn't some grim, ugly, teeth-gritting duty. On the contrary: "it's a very good feeling." It is really is happiness...Pleasures can never make up for an absence of purposeful work and meaningful relationships. Pleasures will never make you whole...Real happiness comes from working together, hurting together, fighting together, surviving together, mourning together. It is the essence of the happiness of excellence...The happiness of pleasure can't provide purpose; it can't substitute for the happiness of excellence. The challenge for the veteran - and for anyone suddenly deprived of purpose - is not simple to overcome trauma, but to rebuild meaning. The only way out is through suffering to strength. Through hardship to healing. And the longer we wait, the less life we have to live...We are meant to have worthy work to do. If we aren't allowed to struggle for something worthwhile, we'll never grow in resilience, and we'll never experience complete happiness.

This was a talk to an anarchist conference, and in my view the libertarian movements have been very shortsighted in pursuing doctrine in a rigid fashion without being concerned about the human consequences. So it's perfectly proper… I mean, in my view, and that of a few others, the state is an illegitimate institution. But it does not follow from that that you should not support the state. Sometimes there is a more illegitimate institution which will take over if you do not support this illegitimate institution. So, if you're concerned with the people, let's be concrete, let's take the United States. There is a state sector that does awful things, but it also happens to do some good things. As a result of centuries of extensive popular struggle there is a minimal welfare system that provides support for poor mothers and children. That's under attack in an effort to minimize the state. Well, anarchists can't seem to understand that they are to support that. So they join with the ultra-right in saying "Yes, we've got to minimize the state," meaning put more power into the hands of private tyrannies which are completely unaccountable to the public and purely totalitarian. It's kind of reminiscent of an old Communist Party slogan back in the early thirties "The worse, the better." So there was a period when the Communist Party was refusing to combat fascism on the theory that if you combat fascism, you join the social democrats and they are not good guys, so "the worse, the better." That was the slogan I remember from childhood. Well, they got the worse: Hitler. If you care about the question of whether seven-year-old children have food to eat, you'll support the state sector at this point, recognizing that in the long term it's illegitimate. I know that a lot of people find that hard to deal with and personally I'm under constant critique from the left for not being principled. Principle to them means opposing the state sector, even though opposing the state sector at this conjuncture means placing power into the hands of private totalitarian organizations who would be delighted to see children starve. I think we have to be able to keep those ideas in our heads if we want to think constructively about the problems of the future. In fact, protecting the state sector today is a step towards abolishing the state because it maintains a public arena in which people can participate, and organize, and affect policy, and so on, though in limited ways. If that's removed, we'd go back to a [...] dictatorship or say a private dictatorship, but that's hardly a step towards liberation.

You may not recognize the name Steven Schussler, CEO of Schussler Creative Inc., but you are probably familiar with his very popular theme restaurant Rainforest Café. Steve is one of the scrappiest people I know, with countless scrappy stories. He is open and honest about his wins and losses. This story about how he launched Rainforest Café is one of my favorites: Steve first envisioned a tropical-themed family restaurant back in the 1980s, but unfortunately, he couldn’t persuade anyone else to buy into the idea at the time. Not willing to give up easily, he decided to get scrappy and be “all in.” To sell his vision, he transformed his own split-level suburban home into a living, mist-enshrouded rain forest to convince potential investors that the concept was viable. Yes, you read that correctly—he converted his own house into a jungle dwelling complete with rock outcroppings, waterfalls, rivers, and layers of fog and mist that rose from the ground. The jungle included a life-size replica of an elephant near the front door, forty tropical birds in cages, and a live baby baboon named Charlie. Steve shared the following details: Every room, every closet, every hallway of my house was set up as a three-dimensional vignette: an attempt to present my idea of what a rain forest restaurant would look like in actual operation. . . . [I]t took me three years and almost $400,000 to get the house developed to the point where I felt comfortable showing it to potential investors. . . . [S]everal of my neighbors weren’t exactly thrilled to be living near a jungle habitat. . . . On one occasion, Steve received a visit from the Drug Enforcement Administration. They wanted to search the premises for drugs, presuming he may have had an illegal drug lab in his home because of his huge residential electric bill. I imagine they were astonished when they discovered the tropical rain forest filled with jungle creatures. Steve’s plan was beautiful, creative, fun, and scrappy, but the results weren’t coming as quickly as he would have liked. It took all of his resources, and he was running out of time and money to make something happen. (It’s important to note that your scrappy efforts may not generate results immediately.) I asked Steve if he ever thought about quitting, how tight was the money really, and if there was a time factor, and he said, “Yes to all three! Of course I thought about quitting. I was running out of money and time.” Ultimately, Steve’s plan succeeded. After many visits and more than two years later, gaming executive and venture capitalist Lyle Berman bought into the concept and raised the funds necessary to get the Rainforest Café up and running. The Rainforest Café chain became one of the most successful themed restaurants ever created, and continues that way under Landry’s Restaurants and Tilman Fertitta’s leadership. Today, Steve creates restaurant concepts in fantastic warehouses far from his residential neighborhood!

In his book, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Viet Thanh Nguyen writes that immigrant communities like San Jose or Little Saigon in Orange County are examples of purposeful forgetting through the promise of capitalism: “The more wealth minorities amass, the more property they buy, the more clout they accumulate, and the more visible they become, the more other Americans will positively recognize and remember them. Belonging would substitute for longing; membership would make up for disremembering.” One literal example of this lies in the very existence of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chinese immigrants in California had battled severe anti-Chinese sentiment in the late 1800s. In 1871, eighteen Chinese immigrants were murdered and lynched in Los Angeles. In 1877, an “anti-Coolie” mob burned and ransacked San Francisco’s Chinatown, and murdered four Chinese men. SF’s Chinatown was dealt its final blow during the 1906 earthquake, when San Francisco fire departments dedicated their resources to wealthier areas and dynamited Chinatown in order to stop the fire’s spread. When it came time to rebuild, a local businessman named Look Tin Eli hired T. Paterson Ross, a Scottish architect who had never been to China, to rebuild the neighborhood. Ross drew inspiration from centuries-old photographs of China and ancient religious motifs. Fancy restaurants were built with elaborate teak furniture and ivory carvings, complete with burlesque shows with beautiful Asian women that were later depicted in the musical Flower Drum Song. The idea was to create an exoticized “Oriental Disneyland” which would draw in tourists, elevating the image of Chinese people in America. It worked. Celebrities like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Ronald Reagan and Bing Crosby started frequenting Chinatown’s restaurants and nightclubs. People went from seeing Chinese people as coolies who stole jobs to fetishizing them as alluring, mysterious foreigners. We paid a price for this safety, though—somewhere along the way, Chinese Americans’ self-identity was colored by this fetishized view. San Francisco’s Chinatown was the only image of China I had growing up. I was surprised to learn, in my early twenties, that roofs in China were not, in fact, covered with thick green tiles and dragons. I felt betrayed—as if I was tricked into forgetting myself. Which is why Do asks his students to collect family histories from their parents, in an effort to remember. His methodology is a clever one. “I encourage them and say, look, if you tell your parents that this is an academic project, you have to do it or you’re going to fail my class—then they’re more likely to cooperate. But simultaneously, also know that there are certain things they won’t talk about. But nevertheless, you can fill in the gaps.” He’ll even teach his students to ask distanced questions such as “How many people were on your boat when you left Vietnam? How many made it?” If there were one hundred and fifty at the beginning of the journey and fifty at the end, students may never fully know the specifics of their parents’ trauma but they can infer shadows of the grief they must hold.

CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESS The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. —Oprah Winfrey How do you know if your scrappy effort was successful? There’s positive movement—cause to celebrate. It either moves your intention forward or you come closer to achieving your goal. You will know it worked because you feel the win, big or small. I’m a huge believer in champagne moments (or celebratory beer, ice cream, night on the town, whatever your preference). You have to celebrate! This journey is supposed to be fun. Stop and take the time to recognize and enjoy the big wins, little wins, and everything in between. Research shows there is bonus value to celebrating. In her article “Getting Results Through Others,” Loraine Kasprzak writes, quoting her coauthor Jean Oursler, “When others have worked hard to achieve the desired results, celebrate it! ‘It’s important to celebrate because our brains need a memorable reference point—also called a reward—to make the whole journey worthwhile.’” Celebrating creates a positive benchmark in your brain for future reference. According to an article in the Journal of Staff Development by Richard DuFour: Ritual and ceremony help us experience the unseen webs of significance that tie a community together. There may be grand ceremonies for special occasions, but organizations [and individuals] also need simple rituals that infuse meaning and purpose into daily routine. Without ritual and ceremony, transitions become incomplete, a clutter of comings and goings. Life becomes an endless set of Wednesdays. An endless set of Wednesdays? Yuck. Who needs that? Whether you are an individual, a small team, or a large organization, celebrate your scrappy wins as part of the experience and enjoy the ride.

It was true. They’d been close enough to recognize him. But they’d hunted down him and Sejanus — Sejanus, who’d treated the tributes so well, fed them, defended them, given them last rites! — even though they could have used that opportunity to kill one another. “I think I underestimated how much they hate us,” said Coriolanus. “And when you realized that, what was your response?” she asked. He thought back to Bobbin, to the escape, to the tributes’ bloodlust even after he’d cleared the bars. “I wanted them dead. I wanted every one of them dead.” Dr. Gaul nodded. “Well, mission accomplished with that little one from Eight. You beat him to a pulp. Have to make up some story for that buffoon Flickerman to tell in the morning. But what a wonderful opportunity for you. Transformative.” “Was it?” Coriolanus remembered the sickening thuds of his board against Bobbin. So he had what? Murdered the boy? No, not that. It was an open-and-shut case of self-defense. But what, then? He had killed him, certainly. There would never be any erasing that. No regaining that innocence. He had taken human life. “Wasn’t it? More than I could’ve hoped. I needed you to get Sejanus out of the arena, of course, but I wanted you to taste that as well,” she said. “Even if it killed me?” asked Coriolanus. “Without the threat of death, it wouldn’t have been much of a lesson,” said Dr. Gaul. “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.” The idea, laid out as such, shocked him, but he attempted a laugh. “Are we really as bad as all that?” “I would say yes, absolutely. But it’s a matter of personal opinion.” Dr. Gaul pulled a roll of gauze from the pocket of her lab coat. “What do you think?” “I think I wouldn’t have beaten anyone to death if you hadn’t stuck me in that arena!” he retorted. “You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else. It’s a lot to take in all at once, but it’s essential that you make an effort to answer that question. Who are human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about what you learned tonight.

Wake up every day, expecting not to know what's going to happen, and look for the events to unfold with curiosity. Instead of stressing and managing, just be present at anything that pops up with the intention of approaching it with your best efforts. Whatever happens in the process of spiritual awakening is going to be unpredictable and moving forward, if you're just the one who notices it, not fighting or making a big project out there. •       You may have emotional swings, energetic swings, psychic openings, and other unwanted shifts that, as you knew, feel unfamiliar to your personality. Be the beholder. Don't feel like you have something to fix or alter. They're going to pass. •       If you have severe trauma in your history and have never had therapy, it might be very useful to release the pains of memories that arise around the events. Therapy teaches you how to express, bear witness, release, and move forward. Your therapist needn't know much about kundalini as long as he or she doesn't discount that part of your process. What you want to focus on is the release of trauma-related issues, and you want an experienced and compassionate therapist who sees your spiritual orientation as a motivation and support for the healing process. •       This process represents your chance to wake up to your true nature. Some people wake up first, and then experience the emergence of a kundalini; others have the kundalini process going through as a preparation for the emergence. The appearance happens to do the job of wiping out, so is part of either pattern. Waking up means realizing that whoever looks through your eyes, lives through your senses, listens to your thoughts, and is present at every moment of your experience, whether good or bad, is recognized or remembered. This is a bright, conscious, detached and unconditionally loving presence that is universal and eternal and is totally free from all the conditions and memories you associate with as a personal identity. But as long as you believe in all of your personal conditions and stories, emotions, and thoughts, you have to experience life filtered by them. This programmed mind is what makes the game of life to be varied and suspense-filled but it also causes suffering and fear of death. When we are in Samadhi and Satori encounters, we glimpse the Truth about the vast, limitless space that is the foundation for our being. It is called gnosis (knowledge) or the One by the early Gnostics. Some spiritual teachings like Advaita Vedanta and Zen go straight for realization, while others see it as a gradual path through years of spiritual practices. Anyway, the ending is the same. As Shakespeare said, when you know who you are, the world becomes a stage and you the player, and life is more light and thoughts less intrusive, and the kundalini process settles down into a mellow pleasantness. •       Give up places to go and to be with people that cause you discomfort.

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony. To accomplish that unity, Anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so far prevented the harmonious blending of individual and social instincts, the individual and society. Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism rouses man to rebellion against this black monster. Break your mental fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all progress. Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right, when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion, "Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his face toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the monster dead. "Property is robbery," said the great French Anarchist, Proudhon. Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal demand a hundredfold. But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. America is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey. It is generally conceded that unless the returns of any business venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. But those engaged in the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this simple lesson. Every year the cost of production in human life is growing larger (50,000 killed, 100,000 wounded in America last year); the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever getting smaller. Yet America continues to be blind to the inevitable bankruptcy of our business of production. Nor is this the only crime of the latter. Still more fatal is the crime of turning the producer into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than his master of steel and iron. Man is being robbed not merely of the products of his labor, but of the power of free initiative, of originality, and the interest in, or desire for, the things he is making.

The Singaporean study also identified three specific conditions that promoted productive failure. First, failure is best when it promotes a sense of challenge and engagement versus frustration. Frustration, of course, is the feeling that you are going nowhere at top speed, so there has to be a sense of progress and achievement. You can’t just hand a child a calculus equation and expect productive failure. It has to be within their capabilities and they have to be able to see improvement.  Second, failure is best when learners have the opportunity to elaborate on what they are doing and thinking, as was done in a group setting during the study. When you can narrate what you’re doing, instead of toiling away in silence, it can help shed light on your efforts because you’re actively thinking about what you’re doing and analyzing it. Often, thinking out loud leads to solutions that wouldn’t have appeared otherwise. Third, failure is best when learners have the chance to compare solutions that work, and solutions that don’t. This is what happens when you aren’t shown the exact path every single time. You recognize the red flags of failure and gain intuition when something seems right or wrong.

The Addictive Self-Soother When dealing with the addictive self-soother, recognize that you’re with someone who is in a state of unknowing avoidance. The intolerable discomfort associated with his unrecognized loneliness, shame, and disconnection when the spotlight isn’t casting its shimmering glow upon him sends him hiding beneath the floorboards once again. He may be engrossed in workaholism, drinking binges, spending marathons, or voracious Internet surfing. He may indulge in the delivery of yet another tiring oration on some esoteric or controversial subject, not necessarily because he’s seeking attention, but in an effort to avoid feeling the throbbing pulse of his aloneness and fragility. You may go knocking, but he doesn’t come out. He can’t risk being seen au naturel, with all of his emotions, needs, and longings revealed. You’re expected to pander to his selective emotional departures and not request his presence, regardless of the emotional costs to you.

That's because some sense of dignity always remains in them. They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self-esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive. So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it could be accepted. By seeking self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. And it has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become the dreadful form of selfishness which a truly selfish man couldn't have conceived. And now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we're asked to destroy the self.AAAAAAAAAAA“Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean-for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they've come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once-and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters.

That's because some sense of dignity always remains in them. They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self-esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive. So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it could be accepted. By seeking self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. And it has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become the dreadful form of selfishness which a truly selfish man couldn't have conceived. And now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we're asked to destroy the self. Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean-for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they've come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once-and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters.

Precisely because situations are difficult to see, effort is required to recognize their influence. So we’re particularly likely to stick to internal explanations for behavior when we don’t have the mental energy to consider the alternatives.

inconsequential. They’re small things that matter little. Treat them as such. For example, rather than becoming annoyed at the sight of unwashed dishes in the sink, spend 60 seconds washing them. Forgive and move on. Third, remind yourself that “this too shall pass.” This practice may seem silly, but consider this: we usually become annoyed in the heat of the moment. Something happens that we dislike, and we immediately get upset. This is an emotional response, not one born of rational thought. When you tell yourself “this too shall pass,” you recognize

Friends are a strange, volatile, contradictory, yet sticky phenomenon. They are made, crafted, shaped, molded, created by focused effort and intent. And yet, true friendship, once recognized, in its essence is effortless. Best friends are formed by time. Everyone is someone's friend, even when they think they are all alone. If the friendship is not working, your heart will know. It's when you start being less than perfectly honest and perfectly earnest in your dealings. And it's when the things you do together no longer feel right. However, sometimes it takes more effort to make it work after all. Stick around long enough to become someone's best friend.

Living into our values and feedback 1. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I’m ready to sit next to you rather than across from you. 2. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I’m willing to put the problem in front of us rather than between us (or sliding it toward you). 3. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I’m ready to listen, ask questions, and accept that I may not fully understand the issue. 4. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I’m ready to acknowledge what you do well instead of just picking apart your mistakes. 5. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I recognize your strengths and how you can use them to address your challenges. 6. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I can hold you accountable without shaming or blaming. 7. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I’m open to owning my own part. 8. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I can genuinely thank someone for their efforts rather than just criticizing them for their failings. 9. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I can talk about how resolving these challenges will lead to growth and opportunity. 10. I know I’m ready to give feedback when I can model the vulnerability and openness that I expect to see from you.

When you get a high five, you are seen and affirmed as a person. Not for your skills, your effort, or your grades. You are being praised and recognized just for being YOU. And what I am telling you

Mere human efforts (education, environment, therapy) cannot cure the sin problem. My brokenness, like yours, is very complex. Parts of it have to do with my wounds and my scars and my disappointments, but at the core is my natural inclination towards sin. It is deeply embedded in our souls, and it is literally killing us. We cannot change this condition, but we can free our souls from its power over us by recognizing that it is there, daily seeking God's forgiveness and strength, and living the way he designed us. It is only when we surrender to God and his ways that our souls experience freedom. We may stumble along the way, for no one is perfect. But we serve a perfect Savior who is patient and always ready to forgive us when we fail.

So you’ve made it to goal weight. Of course, the way we as a society typically celebrate big accomplishments is through eating food—big or fancy meals, desserts, freely flowing alcohol. So we need to find a different way to celebrate our successes! One of the best ways to celebrate is to pause, appreciating the effort and perseverance you put into creating your new body and managed mind. It’s so easy to reach a hard-earned goal, only to brush right past it on your way to taking on the next big goal. So take a beat and recognize yourself for doing the work to create a result that most people simply dream of. Depending on how much weight you lost, it might be time to purchase some new clothes. While this can be extremely fun and exciting for some people, for others, participating in a shopping spree sounds like a nightmare. Many women are afraid to let themselves buy new clothing as they lose weight, both while in progress and at the end. They don’t want to spend money on clothes when they have more weight to lose since it can feel like a waste to buy a size that you’re hoping not to fit into in another month or two. But one way for you to honor and respect yourself and your body is to wear clothes that properly fit you at every size along the way. They don’t have to be expensive and you don’t have to fill your entire closet—in fact, my clients have often passed down work clothes that were still in good condition to one another for free! Regardless of where you get it from, make sure your clothing fits your current body well, and decide ahead of time that you’ll donate the clothes or give them to friends once you’ve moved beyond that size.

Most people who discover they have ADD, whether children or adults, have suffered a great deal of pain. The emotional experience of ADD is filled with embarrassment, humiliation, and self-castigation. By the time the diagnosis is made, many people with ADD have lost confidence in themselves. Many have been misunderstood repeatedly. Many have consulted with numerous specialists, only to find no real help. As a result, many have lost hope. Individuals with ADD may have forgotten what is good about themselves. They may have lost any sense of the possibility of things working out. They are often locked into a kind of tenacious holding pattern, needing all their considerable resiliency and ingenuity just to keep their heads above water. And yet their capacity to hope and to dream is immense. More than most people, individuals with ADD have visionary imaginations. They think big thoughts and dream big dreams. They can take the smallest opportunity and imagine turning it into a major break. They can take a chance encounter and turn it into a grand evening out. But like most dreamers, they go limp when the dream collapses. Usually, by the time an individual seeks help, this collapse has happened often enough to leave them wary of hoping again. Hope begins with the diagnosis. More than with most disorders, often just the making of the diagnosis of ADD exerts a powerful therapeutic effect. The walls of years of misunderstanding come crashing down under the force of a lucid explanation of the cause of the individual’s problems. While with other medical conditions the diagnosis directs the treatment, with ADD, to a large extent, the diagnosis is the treatment. The diagnosis brings great relief in and of itself. For example, if you were nearsighted and had never heard of nearsightedness, and for years you had thought your blurry vision and subsequent learning problems were due to lack of effort or moral turpitude, imagine your relief in discovering that there was this condition called nearsightedness, and it had nothing to do with effort or morality, but rather was a neurological condition. So it is with ADD. The diagnosis is liberating. Everything else in the treatment evolves logically from an understanding of the diagnosis.

Since the beginning of time, God has been dealing with people just like us who are flawed, insecure, and sinful. That is exactly why He sent Jesus to be for us what we never could be for ourselves. Friend, maybe you are tired of trying because God wants you to recognize you don’t need to keep trying. Instead of trying to fix things by being strong enough, good enough, and smart enough, God wants you to stop relying on yourself and your own efforts. Maybe tired of trying is exactly where God needs you to be because it’s the only way to get you to face whatever it is you’re trying very hard not to face.

Steldor lay on the bed, chest to the mattress, medicine-soaked bandages covering his shirtless back. The wrappings, though fresh from his best friend’s last visit, were dappled crimson and yellow from his body’s efforts to cleanse the wounds, and I could see shadows of long lines of stitches crossing his skin. “Steldor, Shaselle is here,” Galen said. My cousin lifted his head to squint at me. “Where did you come from?” “Outside,” I answered dryly, recognizing on its second asking just how inane the question was. Steldor was not amused. “I’ll leave you two alone,” Galen said, backing out of the room. When the door clicked shut, Steldor propped himself up on his elbows, wincing with the movement. “I wanted to see you,” I told him. “Could have guessed, since you’re here. Well, what have you been doing?” I considered his inquiry, scratching the back of my head. “I got attacked by a butcher.” The incident was still on my mind, not one easily dismissed, and part of me wanted his reaction. “A butcher?” he repeated, concerned. His eyes roved over me and he pronounced, “You appear to have survived.” “The same can be said of you.” “Thus far, anyway,” he responded with a self-deprecating chuckle. “You don’t have to tell me how smart that flag stunt was. My father has covered that.” I quickly countered his sarcasm. “I thought it was brave.” “The captain thought it was daft. And, in the aftermath, I’m tempted to agree with him.” Steldor motioned vaguely to his injured back and I drew nearer, half out of morbid curiosity, half to prove that I wasn’t afraid to look. For the first time, I noticed his damp hair and the sheen of sweat across his brow--he was fevered, and no doubt miserable.

His passive aggression is making our lives hell. The simple things like saying “I’ll do this,” and then actually doing it, are lost. He uses his passive aggressive communication/language as a way to make me feel demanding (when he doesn’t do things he said he would) or abusive (confronting him about how many times he’s let me down).” “He is bitter and jealous of anyone else’s achievements, and either criticizes them constantly or refuses to talk to them at all. He continually gripes about not being recognized for his hard work, when he’s not really putting in any more effort than I am. He mumbles so I can’t tell whether he’s insulting me or others, and he’s distant, even when we’re in the same room. Help me!

Several forms of thinking play a crucial role in preparing and readying us for conflict, violence or crisis.  These include the “if – then or when-then thinking; when X happens, then I will do… Y”. Positive self-talk and visualizing the situation are positive tools that develop patterns in your mind (like any other form of training) in an effort to anticipate threats as we explore the situation, make an situational assessment and plan  an adaptable response to a predator we can’t fully anticipate. We need to become students of human behavior, both normal and aberrant, to rapidly recognize the difference between the two and be ready to instantly respond correctly and accurately.  Inherent in this understands the various dimensions of aberrant behavior between deviant, dangerous, suspicious, under the influence, and psychiatric.

Guidelines for ROE 1. When on post, mobile, or foot patrol, keep loaded magazine in weapon, bolt closed, weapon on safe, no round in the chamber. 2. Do not chamber a round unless told to do so by a commissioned officer unless you must act in immediate self-defense where deadly force is authorized. 3. Keep ammo for crew-served weapons readily available but not loaded. Weapon is on safe. 4. Call local forces to assist in self-defense effort. Notify headquarters. 5. Use only minimum degree of force to accomplish any mission. 6. Stop the use of force when it is no longer needed to accomplish the mission. 7. If you receive effective hostile fire, direct your fire at the source. If possible, use friendly snipers. 8. Respect civilian property; do not attack it unless absolutely necessary to protect friendly forces. 9. Protect innocent civilians from harm. 10. Respect and protect recognized medical agencies such as Red Cross, Red Crescent, etc. Col. Jim Mead’s 32nd MAU was relieved by Col. Tom Stokes’s 24th MAU on October 30, 1982. The transition was seamless, morale was high, and all hands assumed their responsibilities enthusiastically. Colonel Stokes also honored the Ministry of Defense’s request to help train the LAF. The government of Lebanon (GOL) introduced conscription, and young men from all over Lebanon answered the call to colors. The various religious groups—the Christians, Druze, Sunnis, and Shiites—were being trained and integrated into the Lebanese Army. Although the U.S. Army already had an ongoing training mission in effect, it was viewed that the Marines’ additional training would quickly improve the LAF’s combat capabilities. The results of the training courses led to their expansion, particularly among the noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The religious integration of the LAF was a major goal of its commander, Gen. Ibrahim Tannous, who wanted to produce a true national army. The Marine training was contributing to that end.

Practice: Seeking Your Heart’s Desire Desires play a key role in discernment; they help us bring our whole selves to God. Here you will begin to identify your heart’s most basic desires. Prepare yourself to pray by attending first to your body, to any tensions, fatigue, lightness, or energy that it carries. Then attend to your mind, with its busy humming and noisy chatter, its naming, judging, and planning. Invite your body to relaxed attentiveness and invite your mind to take a break for the next few minutes. Paying gentle attention to your own breathing, without trying to change it, may assist your efforts regarding both your body and your mind. 1. Dedicate this time to God. Ask for the light of the Holy Spirit to notice your deepest desires, to name them accurately, and to respond appropriately to what you find. 2. When you are ready, ask yourself, as you sit quietly in the presence of God, “What do I want, right this minute?” 3. When you recognize what it is that you want, give it a name and jot it down in your journal. Return to the relaxed attentiveness. Ask again: “What do I want, right this minute?” 4. Again, notice, name, and jot it in your journal. (Repeat this process, until no more desires surface. After each, return to your relaxed attentiveness.) 5. Now look at all the desires you have named. Notice which seem to be

Finding Favor in God’s Eyes Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD…. Noah did everything just as God commanded him. —GENESIS 6:8,22     One way to find favor with God is to love His little children. In the New Testament we read where Jesus loved the young children and warned us as adults to be careful not to harm the little children. As a grandparent, I can gain favor with God by being kind and gentle with the little ones in our family. What an honor to be a part of the spiritual development of any child. In government, sports, business, medicine, education, theater, and music—there are those who rise to the top of their professions and are honored because they find favor through their actions, personalities, efforts, or sometimes just because of their social connections. They might be known for very amazing and noble accomplishments like running a nonprofit, discovering a new cancer drug, teaching those thought unteachable, or singing the most beautiful aria the world has ever heard. These are all remarkable reasons to have favor among men. But have you ever thought how much richer life would be to have God find favor with you as a parent, a grandparent? I stand in awe when I think of God finding favor with me, but He does. Noah lived in a world much like today’s, a world full of sin. Humanity hasn’t changed much over the centuries—we just give sin a different name. Yet through all this wickedness, Noah was a person who lived a godly life. His life was pleasing to God even during those evil days. Noah didn’t find favor because of his individual goodness but through his obedience to God. We are also judged according to the same standard—that of our personal faith and obedience. Even though Noah was upright and blameless before God, he wasn’t perfect. God recognized that Noah’s life reflected a genuine faith, but not always a perfect faith. Do you sometimes feel all alone in your walk with God? I know I do. Noah found that it wasn’t the surroundings of his life that kept him in close fellowship with God, but it was the heart of Noah that qualified him to find friendship with God. It isn’t important to find favor from our fellow humans. God’s favor is so much more rewarding. Somehow God’s favor with me is passed down through the favor from my grandchildren. As we live in this very difficult time of history, I might ask, “Do I find favor in God’s sight?” God gives us grace to live victoriously: “He gives us more grace” (James 4:6).

SLEEP TRAINING DOES NOT EQUAL CRY IT OUT Sleep training involves several general principles to use the natural development of sleep/wake rhythms as an aid to help your child learn to sleep. • Respect your baby’s need to sleep. • Start early to plan for or anticipate for when your baby will need to sleep, similar to anticipating when your baby will need to feed. • Maintain brief intervals of wakefulness, this is the one- to two-hour window. • Learn to recognize drowsy cues (see this page), though they may be absent in 20 percent of extremely fussy/colicky babies. Drowsy cues or sleepy signs signal that your baby is becoming sleepy; this is when you should begin your soothing efforts. • When you put your baby down or lie down with him, he may be drowsy and awake or in a deep sleep. Either way works if you have good timing. • Develop a bedtime routine. • Matching the time when you soothe your baby to sleep to the time when he naturally needs to sleep is the key. For 80 percent of common fussy babies, perfect timing produces no crying. • During the first several weeks, many babies fall asleep while feeding or sucking to soothe even if not hungry. This is natural. It is not necessary to deliberately wake your baby before you put him down to sleep or lie down with him in your bed. Later, your older baby may or may not momentarily and partially awaken as you remove your breast or bottle before falling asleep. Do not force him to a wakeful state before attempting to sleep him.

Step By Step Guide To Finding A Good Roofing Contractor The local roofing repair contractor you choose should always have a great reputation in the community and a track record of exceptional customer service. When you can't be on site, you need to know that your service provider is doing an excellent job. You also need to be sure that old-fashioned craftsmanship and quality materials are part of the roofing repair contractor's vision for his work. The following are methods to make sure that you hire the right roofing repair contractor. A reliable roofing repair contractor will make an effort to bring you the highest quality results. Well-regarded roofing repair contractors preserve their good reputations by always keeping their promises. Give your roofing repair contractor an appropriate timeline and do not interrupt his work unnecessarily. Discover how the contractual worker arrangements to handle any obligation issues. Once you start seeing bids, do not make the mistake of assuming that a low bid will lead to a similarly low work performance. Check the cost of the needed materials and compare them to the pricing of the low bid. In addition, it's important to think about all the labor costs. Construct a legal contract only when you have determined the price is within reason. Often when you are searching for a local roofing repair contractor with a great reputation and who will provide the very best work, this is usually one of the busier people in his field. If your local roofing repair contractor has a reputation for doing a great job, be prepared to wait to engage his services. There is a downside to roofing repair contractors who are in high demand as they might not be able to focus entirely on your project. The most vital thing in finding a local roofing repair contractor is to trust your instincts. Every time a roofing expert comes to you with a legal contract that requires your signature, read the legal agreement to really ensure all of your requests are present in the legal agreement and the roofing expert recognizes them. If you're taking the time to ensure the legal agreement has everything you and your service provider had agreed on and is put in clear terms, it'll save you much stress and money down the road. Ensure you have posed all questions and concerns to your service provider prior to signing an agreement. If there are any terms or conditions you do not understand, give the legal agreement to a lawyer for clarification. Roofing contractors with excellent reputations consider it good business practice to provide each client with a written quote before starting work on any job. If the info is needed, pronto, your roofing repair contractor might be willing to provide you with a quote over the phone. Inspect the schedule and qualifications of the roofing repair contractor to effectively ensure that the project will be finished exactly how and when you would like it and within your financial requirements. Make sure to ask any questions and address all concerns to your satisfaction before you employee a roofing repair contractor

Correlations made by big data are likely to reinforce negative bias. Because big data often relies on historical data or at least the status quo, it can easily reproduce discrimination against disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities. The propensity models used in many algorithms can bake in a bias against someone who lived in the zip code of a low-income neighborhood at any point in his or her life. If an algorithm used by human resources companies queries your social graph and positively weighs candidates with the most existing connections to a workforce, it makes it more difficult to break in in the first place. In effect, these algorithms can hide bias behind a curtain of code. Big data is, by its nature, soulless and uncreative. It nudges us this way and that for reasons we are not meant to understand. It strips us of our privacy and puts our mistakes, secrets, and scandals on public display. It reinforces stereotypes and historical bias. And it is largely unregulated because we need it for economic growth and because efforts to try to regulate it have tended not to work; the technologies are too far-reaching and are not built to recognize the national boundaries of our world’s 196 sovereign nation-states. Yet would it be best to try to shut down these technologies entirely if we could? No. Big data simultaneously helps solve global challenges while creating an entirely new set of challenges. It’s our best chance at feeding 9 billion people, and it will help solve the problem of linguistic division that is so old its explanation dates back to the Old Testament and the Tower of Babel. Big data technologies will enable us to discover cancerous cells at 1 percent the size of what can be detected using today’s technologies, saving tens of millions of lives. The best approach to big data might be one put forward by the Obama campaign’s chief technology officer, Michael Slaby, who said, “There’s going to be a constant mix between your qualitative experience and your quantitative experience. And at times, they’re going to be at odds with each other, and at times they’re going to be in line. And I think it’s all about the blend. It’s kind of like you have a mixing board, and you have to turn one up sometimes, and turn down the other. And you never want to be just one or the other, because if it’s just one, then you lose some of the soul.” Slaby has made an impressive career out of developing big data tools, but even he recognizes that these tools work best when governed by human judgment. The choices we make about how we manage data will be as important as the decisions about managing land during the agricultural age and managing industry during the industrial age. We have a short window of time—just a few years, I think—before a set of norms set in that will be nearly impossible to reverse. Let’s hope humans accept the responsibility for making these decisions and don’t leave it to the machines.

 The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, “Of course, He can’t do anything about this.” We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, “It can’t be done.” You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.

You have to realize that your family, your friends, and all of those people from the past have a predetermined state of consciousness of who they think you are and how you should act. They identify you within a program of their own personal expectations. When you have self-realization, sometimes you will find that your family will try to bring you back into their reality. They will try to draw you into the old design that you were rather than allow you to be who you are now. If you were never an intellectual person, whenever you try to express your thoughts they will dismiss them and start speaking over you. They won’t give your statement much credibility and the person who always was considered to be the intellectual will take over the conversation. Their opinion is suddenly more important. Everybody who’s within that family or group dynamic knows the process and will face the person who they think is more knowledgeable in that particular area. It’s part of being in the mechanism, and for you to bump that system takes a great deal of effort on your part. It’s not that you should focus on this scenario in particular; rather you should recognize the mechanisms that are shaping and molding how you think and how you are affected.

Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction. Much in the same way that athletes must take care of their bodies outside of their training sessions, you’ll struggle to achieve the deepest levels of concentration if you spend the rest of your time fleeing the slightest hint of boredom. We can find evidence for this claim in the research of Clifford Nass, the late Stanford communications professor who was well known for his study of behavior in the digital age. Among other insights, Nass’s research revealed that constant attention switching online has a lasting negative effect on your brain. Here’s Nass summarizing these findings in a 2010 interview with NPR’s Ira Flatow: So we have scales that allow us to divide up people into people who multitask all the time and people who rarely do, and the differences are remarkable. People who multitask all the time can’t filter out irrelevancy. They can’t manage a working memory. They’re chronically distracted. They initiate much larger parts of their brain that are irrelevant to the task at hand … they’re pretty much mental wrecks. At this point Flatow asks Nass whether the chronically distracted recognize this rewiring of their brain: The people we talk with continually said, “look, when I really have to concentrate, I turn off everything and I am laser-focused.” And unfortunately, they’ve developed habits of mind that make it impossible for them to be laser-focused. They’re suckers for irrelevancy. They just can’t keep on task. [emphasis mine] Once your brain has become accustomed to on-demand distraction, Nass discovered, it’s hard to shake the addiction even when you want to concentrate. To put this more concretely: If every moment of potential boredom in your life—say, having to wait five minutes in line or sit alone in a restaurant until a friend arrives—is relieved with a quick glance at your smartphone, then your brain has likely been rewired to a point where, like the “mental wrecks” in Nass’s research, it’s not ready for deep work—even if you regularly schedule time to practice this concentration.

For some people, it is not easy to recognize positive attributes in others. That is why you must not take it to heart when someone says you are not good enough. Pay attention to how you think and what you allow in your mind. You cannot afford to let anyone determine your value in life. Make an effort to understand who you are. Distil your thoughts and beliefs, so no one can bring you down.

ARGONIX HACK TECH truly lives up to its name as the leading name in the hacking game.with them began at a time when I found myself ensnared in a web of deceit spun by a fraudulent binary company based in Chicago. Like many others, I was lured in by enticing ads promising significant returns on investments. Before I knew it, I had invested a staggering $90,000 into this scheme, convinced that I was making wise decisions and reaping substantial profits.However, it wasn't long before my illusion of financial success came crashing down. As I shared my supposed triumphs with colleagues, they too became interested in investing, eager to replicate my apparent success. Yet, it was their curiosity that ultimately led to the revelation of the truth. Thanks to the vigilance of our IT department, the organized crime behind the binary company's facade was exposed, preventing my coworkers from falling victim to the same trap.Despite the intervention, I found myself plunged into a state of despair and isolation. The realization of my gullibility and the mockery from my peers left me grappling with depression, unable to face the consequences of my actions. In my darkest hour, it was the intervention of our IT guy that proved to be a beacon of hope. Recognizing the gravity of my situation, he introduced me to ARGONIX HACK TECH Reaching out to ARGONIX HACK TECH marked a turning point in my ordeal. From the moment I contacted them through email, I was met with professionalism, empathy, and a commitment to restoring justice. They listened attentively to my story, offering reassurance and guidance every step of the way. With their expertise and resources, they swiftly initiated a thorough investigation into the fraudulent activities that had ensnared me.What impressed me most about ARGONIX HACK TECH was their unwavering dedication to delivering results. They left no stone unturned in their pursuit of justice, employing cutting-edge hacking techniques to uncover the truth and dismantle the criminal enterprise that had preyed upon innocent victims like myself. Throughout the process, they kept me informed and involved, providing regular updates and insights into their progress. ARGONIX HACK TECH went above and beyond their call of duty to offer me support and assistance beyond the realm of hacking. They provided invaluable advice on safeguarding my financial assets and protecting myself from future scams, empowering me to reclaim control over my life and finances. Their professionalism, integrity, and genuine concern for their clients' well-being set them apart as a beacon of trust and reliability in an industry often marred by deception and exploitation.In the end, thanks to the tireless efforts of ARGONIX HACK TECH, justice was served, and I was able to reclaim the funds that had been wrongfully taken from me. But more than just recovering my financial losses, I gained a newfound sense of resilience and empowerment, knowing that there are dedicated professionals like ARGONIX HACK TECH fighting tirelessly to combat cybercrime and restore hope to those who have fallen victim to its insidious grasp.If you're dealing with the cybercrime or financial fraud, I highly endorse ARGONIX HACK TECH as your dependable partner in seeking justice and restitution. Their proficiency, honesty, and steadfast dedication to their clients' welfare make them a trustworthy authority in the realm of hacking and cybersecurity. Email: Argonixhacktech@ job4u.com WhatsApp: + 1 2 0 6 2 3 4 9 9 0 7

REVERSAL The reversal to mastery is to deny its existence or its importance, and therefore the need to strive for it in any way. But such a reversal can only lead to feelings of powerlessness and disappointment. This reversal leads to enslavement to what we shall call the false self. Your false self is the accumulation of all the voices you have internalized from other people—parents and friends who want you to conform to their ideas of what you should be like and what you should do, as well as societal pressures to adhere to certain values that can easily seduce you. It also includes the voice of your own ego, which constantly tries to protect you from unflattering truths. This self talks to you in clear words, and when it comes to mastery, it says things like, “Mastery is for the geniuses, the exceptionally talented, the freaks of nature. I was simply not born that way.” Or it says, “Mastery is ugly and immoral. It is for those who are ambitious and egotistical. Better to accept my lot in life and to work to help other people instead of enriching myself.” Or it might say, “Success is all luck. Those we call Masters are only people who were at the right place at the right time. I could easily be in their place if I had a lucky break.” Or it might also say, “To work for so long at something that requires so much pain and effort, why bother? Better to enjoy my short life and do what I can to get by.” As you must know by now, these voices do not speak the truth. Mastery is not a question of genetics or luck, but of following your natural inclinations and the deep desire that stirs you from within. Everyone has such inclinations. This desire within you is not motivated by egotism or sheer ambition for power, both of which are emotions that get in the way of mastery. It is instead a deep expression of something natural, something that marked you at birth as unique. In following your inclinations and moving toward mastery, you make a great contribution to society, enriching it with discoveries and insights, and making the most of the diversity in nature and among human society. It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures. Alienating yourself from your inclinations can only lead to pain and disappointment in the long run, and a sense that you have wasted something unique. This pain will beexpressed in bitterness and envy, and you will not recognize the true source of your depression.

When you fully recognize who you are, life becomes effortless—everything you need seems to appear without any effort from you. There’s an ease and a flow that take over your life. A life of lack and limitation is over forever. You come to know the ultimate power you have over everything in the world.

Let’s take this line of thinking one step further. Let’s assume you want your child to be a hard worker, but if you’re continuously belittling them for falling short, not working hard enough, or failing to meet your standard of what defines a hard worker, they will likely only become discouraged. Rather, consider speaking to your child as if they are already a hard worker (the way you want them to be), even if they aren’t yet there. Use language such as “you are a 100% effort person,” essentially willing their hardworking-ness into life. Even if your child has not yet achieved this point, you can vocalize the positive version of what’s to come, providing your child with a visual of who they want to become and a path to follow. When this is done, your child will be clear on the goal of who they should be striving to be. In her book Mindset, Dr. Carol Dweck,2 a professor at Stanford University and one of the globally recognized leading researchers in personality, social psychology, and developmental psychology, discusses another crucial element of providing effective feedback. Dr. Dweck discusses how praising a student for getting good grades by attributing this success to their natural abilities is actually detrimental feedback. Similarly, telling a child they did a great job, even if they really didn’t, can set them back, giving them a false sense of confidence. The more effective alternative is to focus on their effort during the project and not the results. If they get a good grade but didn’t work hard for the grade, then the feedback should focus on their effort. The goal is not just good grades. The goal is to instill good habits in learning. So, it’s important that the feedback you provide reflects this goal. A 2020 analysis3 explored the role of feedback in education and found that valuable feedback is critical to a child’s overall success and development. Specifically, feedback was shown to have a higher impact on academic achievement and the development of motor skills.

The question is not whether or not we have needs—needs are a fact of our existence—but rather how we relate to them. When our only perspective is a personal view of need gratification (“my needs” or “your needs” being satisfied), we tend to relate to them with a quality of grasping. Depending on our conditioning, we may overlook the reality of others’ needs or erase the importance of our own. We may narrow our primary aim to gratifying certain needs and ignoring others, which often leads to conflict and tension. When we widen our view to a more universal perspective, to appreciating needs in and of themselves, we can remain fully committed to meeting both our own and others’ needs, without being defined by the outcome. Letting go doesn’t mean that we give up on our values, stop caring, or cease working for change.10 It means that we recognize that the outcome of our efforts is not completely in our hands because in many ways we don’t control the context.

You may be the brains behind a new concept or idea that your toxic boss then takes credit for. You may work on a team and find that one or two toxic colleagues have hijacked the team and are fostering uncivil discourse and derailing the efforts of the team while continuing to profit. When things are unjust, it feels awful, and this dynamic can be multiplied at work where the rules of fairness and logic are believed to apply—if you do better work, you expect to get recognized.

The wise critique Unlike the overt narcissist who would openly put you down and discard your efforts, with coverts, things get a bit more complicated and a lot more undercover. Their aim is to lower your self-confidence by taking the role of a wise teacher who only wishes the best for you. They are the one who knows everything, and you are an infant who is unable to deal with the world around you.  When they are around, you simply won't feel supported or protected, and you won’t be able to pinpoint exactly why. When someone else criticizes you,

Goals can make it possible to achieve worthwhile things, but goals can also increase the chances that we will escalate commitment when we should quit. Goals are pass-fail in nature. You either reach the finish line or you don’t, and progress along the way matters very little. Don’t just measure whether you hit the goal, ask what you have achieved and learned along the way. Set intermediate goals and prioritize goals that allow you to recognize progress along the way or acquire something valuable even if you don’t reach the goal. Goals, when set, are a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’re willing to bear. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. With better advance planning (like identifying monkeys and pedestals and kill criteria) and the help of a good quitting coach, you can make goals more flexible, setting at least one “unless” and planning regular check-ins on the analysis that initially led to setting the goal. In general, when we quit, we fear two things: that we’ve failed and that we’ve wasted our time, effort, or money. Waste is a forward-looking problem, not a backward-looking one.

exhausts himself and falls asleep in our faces. When that happens, Chase puts a blanket over him and we tiptoe out. On this particular day, we decide to grab a snack and screen our video footage. I suggest frozen yogurt at Heaven on Ice—the words are out of my mouth before I remember what happened the last time we were in that place together. He looks worried, so I add, “I promise not to dump anything over your head.” Heaven on Ice is just a few blocks away. We load up sundaes, pick a corner booth, and start to preview the day’s efforts on the flip-cam. It’s good stuff. Mr. Solway is ranting about how the designated hitter has ruined baseball, so we’re both holding back laughter as we watch. We already have enough footage for five videos. I can’t shake the feeling that we keep going back for more just because we don’t want it to end. Chase is having the same thoughts. “I’m going to keep visiting Mr. Solway even after we finish.” “I’ll come with you.” My response is instant, even though I had no idea I was going to say that. “Shosh?” I look up and there’s my mother in line at the register, carrying a small frozen yogurt cake. Suddenly, an expression of utter horror spreads across her face. “Mom? What’s wrong—?” Then I realize that she’s just recognized the person that I’m with, our heads together as we watch the tiny flip-cam screen. I never told anybody in my family who my partner is for the video contest, so I know how this must seem to Mom: that I’m cozied up, practically cheek to cheek, with the horrible bully who made Joel’s life unbearable and forced him out of town. “It’s not what it looks like!” I blurt. Her expression is carved from stone. “The car’s outside. I’ll drive you home.” “But, Mom—” “I said get in the car.” Chase stands up. “Mrs. Weber—” She’s been quiet up to now. But being addressed directly by Chase is too much for her. “How dare you speak to me?” she seethes, her entire body shaking. “Everyone in my family is off-limits to you! If I had my way, you and your filthy friends would be in juvenile hall!” I speak up again. “This is my fault, not his! If you have to blame someone, blame me!” “I am blaming you!” She hustles me out the door, tossing over her shoulder at Chase, “Stay away from my daughter!” “Can’t we talk about this?” I plead. “Oh, we’ll talk about this,” she agrees. “Trust me, by the time we’re through, your ears will be blistered.” We’re halfway home before either of us realizes that she never paid for the frozen yogurt cake.

The bathroom and the laundry room may be humble, utilitarian spaces, but let me point out a simple fact you may have overlooked: they can also be noble places. If you're cleaning yourself and attending to your own grooming regularly, you're making an effort to present yourself well to the world. If you're taking the time to relax in a bubble bath periodically, you're recognizing that life is not all about activity and achievement and that there are suitable times to de-stress and meditate. If you're monitoring your weight on a scale or taking vitamin supplements kept in your bathroom, you're pursuing the value of health. If you're storing medical supplies that you can grab when a child wakes up sick in the night, you're prepared to bring relief. If you're bathing an infant, or perhaps a disabled spouse or elderly parent, you're giving comfort while serving a basic human need. If you're teaching and modeling a simple approach to health and beauty for your kids, you're helping to start them out well in life. If you're going through the routine of washing your family's clothes week in and week out, they may not thank you but they owe you. Let me say it: thank you for caring and thank you for making the most of these spaces in your house by keeping them tidy and uncluttered.

Here’s my contribution...” This statement works in multiple contexts, including those where bragging is not highly regarded and when pointing out your contributions to a team project. If someone claims your work, you might also use statements such as “I appreciate [name] adding to my thinking” or “I’m glad we’re on the same page. My original thinking is that...” “People tell me that...” This softens a brag, as you’ve put it in the third person. “I’m proud to have supported my client by...” This is a softer version of “I did this...” “It’s a privilege to have...” Other variations of this include “I was excited when...,” “I was honored by...,” and “I appreciate...” Banish the statements “It was really a team effort” and “It wasn’t a big deal” from your vocabulary. It’s also stronger to talk about accomplishments rather than effort. I asked Whitney Johnson, who is recognized as one of the world’s foremost executive coaches, what she recommends her clients say when they’re having trouble bragging. One suggestion of particular note is: I know it might feel odd for me to talk to you about what I do well because society has taught us to not like women who do. But now I’m going to, so that you will know that I can do the work you are thinking of hiring me to do.

Patterns for distracting ourselves from fear are established when we’re young. They are deeply ingrained, so it takes some time and effort to uncover them. Recognizing our fear patterns helps us trace fear to the root. From there we can decipher whether there’s truly any cause for urgency, or whether our fear can actually lead us to recognize opportunities to live more in alignment with our values, passion, and purpose.

Being a writer humbles me, so it’s good for me. My ego needs it. It is humbling to accept criticism. It is humbling to recognize when something you’ve written isn’t understood or embraced to the extent that you’d hoped. It is humbling to admit when your expenses exceed your profits. All that is true even when you are consistently surprised by well-received efforts, monetary gains, and extravagant praise. Through all of it, I learned to see myself as just another voice in the choir— one that is hopeful, vulnerable, and faultily human, not superior or inferior to anyone. So, yes, it’s definitely been good for me.

For some people, it is not easy to recognize positive attributes in others. That is why you must not take it to heart when someone says you are not good enough. Pay attention to how you think and what you allow in your mind. You cannot afford to let anyone determine your value in life. Make an effort to understand who you are. Distil your thoughts and beliefs so no one can bring you down.

Always thank people for feedback. Even if you don’t agree with what’s said, receive it graciously and recognize that it took effort to give. If others find you defensive, you’ll get less feedback in the future, which will only hurt your growth.

Goals can make it possible to achieve worthwhile things, but goals can also increase the chances that we will escalate commitment when we should quit. Goals are pass-fail in nature. You either reach the finish line or you don’t, and progress along the way matters very little. Don’t just measure whether you hit the goal, ask what you have achieved and learned along the way. Set intermediate goals and prioritize goals that allow you to recognize progress along the way or acquire something valuable even if you don’t reach the goal. Goals, when set, are a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’re willing to bear. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. With better advance planning (like identifying monkeys and pedestals and kill criteria) and the help of a good quitting coach, you can make goals more flexible, setting at least one “unless” and planning regular check-ins on the analysis that initially led to setting the goal. In general, when we quit, we fear two things: that we’ve failed and that we’ve wasted our time, effort, or money. Waste is a forward-looking problem, not a backward-looking one. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ask for Feedback After an entire chapter on the importance of giving feedback to your reports, surely this comes as no surprise: if there is a secret sauce to self-improvement, it’s to ask for feedback from other people all the time. The only hurdle you need to overcome is yourself—can you remember to ask frequently enough? Can you be humble and self-aware enough to hear it openly and then respond with real change? Remember to ask for both task-specific and behavioral feedback. The more concrete you are about what you want to know, the better. If you lead with, “Hey, how do you think my presentation went?” you’ll probably hear responses like “I think it went well,” which aren’t particularly helpful. Instead, probe at the specifics and make it easy for someone to tell you something actionable. “I’m working on making sure my point is clear in the first three minutes. Did that come across? How can I make it clearer next time?” Always thank people for feedback. Even if you don’t agree with what’s said, receive it graciously and recognize that it took effort to give. If others find you defensive, you’ll get less feedback in the future, which will only hurt your growth.

On the other hand, a generous capital market is usually associated with the following: fear of missing out on profitable opportunities reduced risk aversion and skepticism (and, accordingly, reduced due diligence) too much money chasing too few deals willingness to buy securities in increased quantity willingness to buy securities of reduced quality high asset prices, low prospective returns, high risk and skimpy risk premiums It’s clear from this list of elements that excessive generosity in the capital markets stems from a shortage of prudence and thus should give investors one of the clearest red flags. The wide-open capital market arises when the news is good, asset prices are rising, optimism is riding high, and all things seem possible. But it invariably brings the issuance of unsound and overpriced securities, and the incurrence of debt levels that ultimately will result in ruin. The point about the quality of new issue securities in a wide-open capital market deserves particular attention. A decrease in risk aversion and skepticism—and increased focus on making sure opportunities aren’t missed rather than on avoiding losses—makes investors open to a greater quantity of issuance. The same factors make investors willing to buy issues of lower quality. When the credit cycle is in its expansion phase, the statistics on new issuance make clear that investors are buying new issues in greater amounts. But the acceptance of securities of lower quality is a bit more subtle. While there are credit ratings and covenants to look at, it can take effort and inference to understand the significance of these things. In feeding frenzies caused by excess availability of funds, recognizing and resisting this trend seems to be beyond the ability of the majority of market participants. This is one of the many reasons why the aftermath of an overly generous capital market includes losses, economic contraction, and a subsequent unwillingness to lend. The bottom line of all of the above is that generous credit markets usually are associated with elevated asset prices and subsequent losses, while credit crunches produce bargain-basement prices and great profit opportunities. (“Open and Shut”)

Analyze. Think, think, think. When you do you will recognize that our ordinary way of life is almost meaningless. Do not be discouraged. It would be very foolish to give up now. On those occasions when you feel most hopeless, you must make a powerful effort. We are so accustomed to faulty states of mind that it is difficult to change with just a little practice. Just a drop of something sweet cannot change a taste that is powerfully bitter. We must persist in the face of failure. In difficult personal circumstances the best recourse is to try to remain as honest and sincere as possible. Otherwise, by responding harshly or selfishly, you simply make matters worse. This is especially apparent in painful family situations. You should realize that difficult present circumstances are entirely due to your own past undisciplined actions, so when you experience a difficult period, do your best to avoid behavior that will add to your burden later on. It is important to diminish undisciplined states of mind, but it is even more important to meet adversity with a positive attitude. Keep this in mind: By greeting trouble with optimism and hope, you are undermining worse troubles down the line. Beyond that, imagine that you are easing the burden of everyone suffering problems of that kind. This practice--imagining that by accepting your pain you are using up the negative karma of everyone destined to feel such pain--is very helpful.

The verbalization that I use myself to organize my intended effort is, “next time I’m dreaming I want to remember to recognize I’m dreaming.” The “when” and the “what” of the intended action must be clearly specified.

Are good mediums hard to find? They are! That is why I spend a considerable portion of my efforts in this field in search for good new mediums. These are people with the extrasensory gift, whose interest is scientific, not financial. Natural talents in this field, just as in any other, can be trained. There are strict methods and conditions, and when you work in a field that is still on the fringes of recognized science, the more stringent your conditions are, the better. Today, my methods are well thought out. When I hear of a likely case or prospect, I call the owners or tenants of the building, or if an open area, the nearest neighbor or potential witness, and introduce myself. I get as much information as I can on witnesses and type of phenomena observed, then call the witnesses and interview them. Only after this preliminary work has been done do I call in one of my sensitive-collaborators. I tell them only that a case has come up, and when I will need them. I discuss everything but the case with them on our way to the location, and when we get there, the hosts have been informed not to volunteer any information, either.

Contingent upon the setting of the audit, numerous entrepreneurs can cause more mischief by reacting to a negative survey than not, in particular in light of the fact that there are such countless potential snares to fall into when reacting to an irritated client. In this way, as opposed to quickly replying, make a stride back and ensure you have a methodology for reacting. Stage one is evaluating the audit. It is vital to survey the audit cautiously and carefully. A few analysts are searching for a reaction immediately on the grounds that they really need a response to a worry which they express inside their survey. These audits ought to be reacted to immediately with an answer that tends to the issue straightforwardly with an answer if there is one. Image for post The survey reaction will live everlastingly and will be seen by many individuals (not simply the commentator), so it needs to ponder emphatically the business. We suggest the accompanying structure: Say thanks to them by name for setting aside the effort to leave criticism Recognize the particular circumstance (you don’t need it to appear to be a nonexclusive reaction) Apologize for their negative insight Express that what they encountered isn’t the means by which the business works Clarify any means you will take to guarantee that no one has that experience once more Welcome them to reach you straightforwardly as you’d like a chance to make it right Give your name and an immediate telephone number and additionally email Attempt to utilize your regular voice and be certified and legit. Official-sounding PR articulations simply don’t work in survey reactions; putting on a show of being a genuine human does.

It hurts when you truly love someone and keep on doing your best to make your spouse happy but fails to recognize or appreciate the efforts. I wonder how Jesus feels when he sees us rejecting the love of the father.

How to Fix Roku Error 014.30 Resolving this issue is generally straightforward, although it can be caused by problems outside of your control. Test your Wi-Fi network with another device, such as your cell phone or computer. Make sure your internet is working properly before you proceed. If not, stop and contact your internet service provider. Using your Roku remote, go to Settings > System > System restart on the Roku menu or Settings > System > Power > System restart if you have a Roku television to restart your Roku system. Reboot your modem and router. Rebooting the modem and router may reset your wireless signal to normal if there is other interference that has caused the Roku to lose signal. When all devices are powered on again, test the Roku to see if the error occurs. If the error still appears, use the Roku remote to go to Settings > Network > Setup connection and select Wireless. Choose your network and enter the network password to ensure it is entered correctly. Select Connect to proceed. If you use MAC address filtering on your network your Roku device may be blocked because the MAC address isn’t recognized. Add the MAC address provided on the error message screen to your router to see if that unblocks your Roku device and returns your service to normal. If you have determined that your Wi-Fi network is working efficiently and all other efforts to resolve error 014.30 have failed, performing a factory reset on your Roku device will restore it to its original settings. Then you can set the Roku up as if it were new and reconnect it to your network to see if it is operating properly. For further information contact :- +1 855-203-0401

Principle 1: Leaders Embrace Extreme Ownership. "On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame." Principle 2: There Are No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders. "When leaders drive their teams to achieve a higher standard of performance, they must recognize that when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate." Principle 3: Mission Clarity. "Everyone on the team must understand not only what do to, but why." Principle 4: Keep Your Ego in Check. "Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism." Principle 5: Teamwork. "Each member of the team is critical to success, though the main effort and supporting efforts must be clearly identified. If the overall team fails, everyone fails, even if a specific member or an element within the team did their job successfully. Pointing fingers and placing blame on others contributes to further dissension between teams and individuals. These individuals and teams must instead find a way to work together, communicate with each other, and mutually support one another. The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission." Principle 6: Simplicity and Clarity. "Leaders eliminate complexity in problems and in situations. Leaders bring clarity to a situation. They keep plans simple, clear, and concise." Principle 7: Prioritize and Execute. "Leaders must determine the highest priority task and execute. Prioritize and Execute." Principle 8: Decentralized Command. "Good leaders delegate. They trust their teams to execute. They provide freedom to execute by giving them clarity in the mission and clear boundaries." Principle 9: Manage Up and Manage Down. "As leader, if you don’t understand why decisions are being made, requests denied, or support allocated elsewhere, you must ask those questions up the chain. Then, once understood, you can pass that understanding down to your team." Principle 10: Discipline Equals Freedom.

Principle 1: Leaders Embrace Extreme Ownership. "On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame." Principle 2: There Are No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders. "When leaders drive their teams to achieve a higher standard of performance, they must recognize that when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate." Principle 3: Mission Clarity. "Everyone on the team must understand not only what do to, but why." Principle 4: Keep Your Ego in Check. "Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism." Principle 5: Teamwork. "Each member of the team is critical to success, though the main effort and supporting efforts must be clearly identified. If the overall team fails, everyone fails, even if a specific member or an element within the team did their job successfully. Pointing fingers and placing blame on others contributes to further dissension between teams and individuals. These individuals and teams must instead find a way to work together, communicate with each other, and mutually support one another. The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission." Principle 6: Simplicity and Clarity. "Leaders eliminate complexity in problems and in situations. Leaders bring clarity to a situation. They keep plans simple, clear, and concise." Principle 7: Prioritize and Execute. "Leaders must determine the highest priority task and execute. Prioritize and Execute." Principle 8: Decentralized Command. "Good leaders delegate. They trust their teams to execute. They provide freedom to execute by giving them clarity in the mission and clear boundaries." Principle 9: Manage Up and Manage Down. "As leader, if you don’t understand why decisions are being made, requests denied, or support allocated elsewhere, you must ask those questions up the chain. Then, once understood, you can pass that understanding down to your team." Principle 10: Discipline Equals Freedom.

AWS and the Seven-Year Lead When creating Amazon Web Services (cloud computing), Amazon was essentially creating their own internal Internet Operating System (IOS) and then leveraging their technology infrastructure into a profit center. He said, “IT departments are recognizing that when they adopt AWS, they get more done. They spend less time on low value-add activities like managing datacenters, networking, operating system patches, capacity planning, database scaling, and so on and so on. Just as important, they get access to powerful APIs [Application Programing Interfaces] and tools that dramatically simplify building scalable, secure, robust, high-performance systems. And those APIs and tools are continuously and seamlessly upgraded behind the scenes, without customer effort.” —Bezos (2014 Letter) In other words, Amazon took the proprietary infrastructure they built for themselves and turned it into a service that any developer could use for their own purposes.

Our ongoing Hollywood education included the lesson that moviemaking is not finished once you actually make the movie. After that, you have to promote the movie, because if the audience doesn’t show up, all your hard work is a bit pointless. But before we could sell Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course to audiences, we had to sell it to the theater owners who were going to show it to the public. So the first stop for our promotional efforts was a gathering of movie theater exhibitors called Show West, in Las Vegas. We would team up there with Bruce Willis, who had an interest in producing our movie. Bindi and I had been in Oregon for a few days, visiting family, and we planned to catch up with Steve in Las Vegas. But she and I had an ugly incident at the airport when we arrived. A Vegas lowlife approached us, his hat pulled down, big sunglasses on his face, and displaying some of the worst dentistry I’ve ever seen. He leered at us, obviously drunk or crazy, and tried to kiss me. I backed off rapidly and looked for Steve. I knew I could rely on him to take care of any creep I encountered. Then it dawned on me: The creep was Steve. In order to move around the airport without anyone recognizing him, he put on false teeth and changed his usual clothes. I didn’t recognize my own husband out of his khakis. I burst out laughing. Bindi was wide-eyed. “Look, it’s your daddy.” It took her a while before she was sure. Our Show West presentation featured live wildlife, organized wonderfully by Wes. Bruce Willis spoke. “I sometimes play an action hero myself,” he said, “but you’ll see that Steve is a real-life action hero.” Bindi brought a ball python out on stage. Backstage, she and Bruce hit it off. He has three daughters of his own, and he immediately connected with Bindi. They wound up playing with the lion cubs and the other animals that Wes had organized there.