Year 6 Sats Quotes

THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. We are here to help you. 2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings. 3. The dress code will be enforced. 4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds. 5. Our football team will win the championship this year. 6. We expect more of you here. 7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen. 8. Your schedule was created with you in mind. 9. Your locker combination is private. 10. These will be the years you look back on fondly. TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. You will use algebra in your adult lives. 2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away. 3. Students must stay on campus during lunch. 4. The new text books will arrive any day now. 5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores. 6. We are enforcing the dress code. 7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon. 8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals. 9. There is nothing wrong with summer school. 10. We want to hear what you have to say.

I met a genius on the train today about 6 years old, he sat beside me and as the train ran down along the coast we came to the ocean and then he looked at me and said, it’s not pretty.

I'd felt obligated to get Ian a Christmas present. A chunk of coal sat in a brightly wrapped box under the tree, his name written in big bold letters on the front of it. Ian might be family, but he still had been a very naughty boy this year.

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch – hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into – some fearful, devastating scourge, I know – and, before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it. I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically – read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee. ... I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck. I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I’m ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now. “What a doctor wants,” I said, “is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each.” So I went straight up and saw him, and he said: “Well, what’s the matter with you?” I said: “I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaid’s knee. Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got.” And I told him how I came to discover it all. Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it – a cowardly thing to do, I call it – and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out. I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back. He said he didn’t keep it. I said: “You are a chemist?” He said: “I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers me.” I read the prescription. It ran: “1 lb. beefsteak, with 1 pt. bitter beer every 6 hours. 1 ten-mile walk every morning. 1 bed at 11 sharp every night. And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand.” I followed the directions, with the happy result – speaking for myself – that my life was preserved, and is still going on.

I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.” The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open. “Ay,” she broke in; “and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There’s a many things to see, when one’s still but eight-and-twenty.” She swayed her head slowly from side to side. “A many things to see and sorrow for.

The small Japanese immortal sat cross-legged, his two swords resting flat on the ground before him. He folded his hands in his lap, closed his eyes and breathing through his nose, forcing the chill night air deep into his chest. He held it for a count of five, then shaped his lips into an O and blew it out again, puncturing a tiny hole in the swirling fog before his face. Even though he would never admit it to anyone, Niten loved this moment. He had no affection for what was to come, but this brief time, when all preparations for battle were made and there was nothing left to do but wait, when the world felt still, as if it was holding its breath, was special. This moment, when he was facing death, was when he felt completely, fully alive. He’d still been called Miyamoto Musashi and had been a teenager when he’d first discovered the genuine beauty of the quiet moment before a fight. Every breath suddenly tasted like the finest food, every sound was distinct and divine, and even on the foulest battlefields, his eyes would be drawn to something simple and elegant: a flower, the shape of a branch, the curl of a cloud. A hundred years ago, Aoife had given him a book as a birthday present. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her that she’d missed his birthday by a month, but he had treasured the book, the first edition of The Professor by Charlotte Bronte. It included a line he had never forgotten: In the midst of life we are in death. Years later, he’d heard Ghandi take the same words and shift them around to create something that resonated deeply within him: In the midst of death life persists.

Frances Nolan, age 15 years and 4 months. April 6, 1917. She thought: “If I open this envelope fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no being old for me. There’s a long, long time yet before fifty years…millions of hours of time. But one hour has gone already since I sat here…one hour less to live…one hour gone away from all the hours of my life. “Dear God,” she prayed, “let

You going somewhere with that finger there, darlin’?” His lip kicked up at the side. “You’re fucking beautiful, beauty queen.” I took hold of his hand and sat up. Tank watched every movement I made. The guy had been locked up for three years. He got out two days ago. He must have been bursting for a fuck. I kissed each finger, then, when his mouth was just an inch from mine, pushed his hand to the crotch of my jeans and said, “I like having my stomach stroked as much as the next girl, darlin’, but I’d rather feel those fingers all up in my pussy.

Nearby sat a veteran in a wheelchair. He was young, handsome, and athletic, through missing a leg. My daughter went to him and asked, "You're army - right?" He said, "Yes, I am." My daughter hugged him. "Thank you," she said. Tears welled in the man's eyes. "Did you get my card?" she asked. "My school sent you a card. It said, 'Thank you for saving our Earth.'" The guy just about lost it. He said, "You're welcome. Yes, we did get your card. Thank you for doing that." - Michael Sobel, son of Herbert Sobel. Michael talking about his 6 year old daughter meeting veterans.

In 7.81 square miles of vaunted black community, the 850 square feet of Dum Dum Donuts was the only place in the "community" where one could experience the Latin root of the word, where a citizen could revel in common togetherness. So one rainy Sunday afternoon, not long after the tanks and media attention had left, my father ordered his usual. He sat at the table nearest the ATM and said aloud, to no one in particular, "Do you know that the average household net worth for whites is $113,149 per year, Hispanics $6,325, and black folks $5,677?" "For real?" "What's your source material, nigger?" "The Pew Research Center." Motherfuckers from Harvard to Harlem respect the Pew Research Center, and hearing this, the concerned patrons turned around in their squeaky plastic seats as best they could, given that donut shop swivel chairs swivel only six degrees in either direction. Pops politely asked the manager to dim the lights. I switched on the overhead projector, slid a transparency over the glass, and together we craned our necks toward the ceiling, where a bar graph titled "Income Disparity as Determined by Race" hovered overhead like some dark, damning, statistical cumulonimbus cloud threatening to rain on our collective parades. "I was wondering what that li'l nigger was doing in a donut shop with a damn overhead projector.

We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and had returned about six o’clock on a cold, frosty winter’s evening. As Holmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He glanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on the floor. I picked it up and read: CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON, Appledore Towers, Hampstead. Agent. “Who is he?” I asked. “The worst man in London,” Holmes answered, as he sat down and stretched his legs before the fire. “Is anything on the back of the card?” I turned it over. “Will call at 6:30--C.A.M.,” I read. “Hum! He’s about due. Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo, and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow. And yet I can’t get out of doing business with him--indeed, he is here at my invitation.” “But who is he?” “I’ll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth and position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians, who have gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?” I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.

Alex waited a few minutes before digging into Sherry’s list. Truth be told, he wanted to make sure Harcourt and Nicholson were actually gone. To pass the time, he opened the polished oak drawer in his magnificent desk and pulled out a bottle and a tumbler. Just like former days, he always kept something to drink handy. Unlike former days, this was a bottle of twelve-year-old single malt. Alex poured out two fingers’ worth of the amber liquid in the tumbler, then leaned back in his chair and sipped it. Cheap Scotch always reminded Alex of cough medicine, but the good stuff had a taste that made him think of fine wood, oiled leather, and beautiful women. It was worth what he paid for it. Closing his eyes, Alex just sat, enjoying the experience of the whiskey. It was something he could do for an hour if he let himself, but he had work to do, so he inhaled deeply, then finished his drink and sat up.

On July 6, 2016, a month after my statement was released, Philando Castile, a young black man, was driving home from the grocery store when a police officer pulled him over pulled him over for a broken taillight and shot him seven times. His fiancee in the passenger seat recorded him slumping over, his white shirt stained red like a Japanese flag, while a four-year old girl sat in the back. I thought, Evidence, this is it, the case that gets the verdict. It's right there, you can't turn away from it, can't reason your way out. But on June 16, 2018, the jury returned a not guilty verdict. In Oakland, people stormed the highways. Some called it chaos, but I saw reason. My testimony was incomplete because I'd blacked out. Philando couldn't testify because he was dead, couldn't even attend his own trial. I wish the prosecutor had called Philando to the stand, forced the jury to stare at the empty witness box, his name echoing into the silence, proceeded with questions. What were your nicknames for the little girl? Did your arms get tired when you carried her? Did you know, while getting dressed that morning, those were the clothes you would die in? What kind of cake did you want at your wedding?

Billy sipped the last of his coffee from the mug and shut down his laptop. 1,000 words wasn’t great but it also wasn’t as bad as no words at all. It hadn’t exactly been a great couple of years and the royalties from his first few books were only going to hold out so much longer. Even if he didn’t have anything else to worry about there was always Sara to consider. Sara with her big blue eyes so like her mother’s. He sat for a moment longer thinking about his daughter and all they’d been through since Wendy had passed. Then he picked up his mug with a long sigh and carried it to the kitchen to rinse it in the sink. When he came back into his little living room and the quiet of 1 AM he wasn’t surprised to find her there over to the side of the bookshelf hovering close to the floor just beyond the couch. Wendy. Her eyes were cold and intense in death, angry and spiteful in a way he’d never seen them when she was alive. What once had been beautiful was now a horror and a threat, one that he’d known far too well in the years since she’d died. He and Sara both. He stood where he was looking at her as she glared up at him. Part of her smaller vantage point was caused by kneeling next to the shelf but he knew from the many times she’d walked or run through a room that death had also reduced her, made her no higher than 4 or 4 and half feet when she’d been 6 in life. She was like a child trapped there on the cusp between youth and coming adulthood. Crushed and broken down into a husk, an entity with no more love for them than a snake. Familiar tears stung his eyes but he blinked them away letting his anger and frustration rise in place of his grief. “Fuck you! What right do you have to be here? Why won’t you let Sara and I be? We loved you! We still love you!” She doesn’t respond, she never does. It’s as if she used up all of her words before she died and now all that’s left is the pain and the anger of her death. The empty lack of true life in her eyes leaves him cold. He doesn’t say anything else to her. It’s all a waste and he knows it. She frightens him as much as she makes him angry. Spite lives in every corner of her body and he’s reached his limit on how long he can see this perversion, this nightmare of what once meant so much to him. He walks past the bookshelf and through the doorway there. He and Sara’s rooms are up above. With an effort he resists the urge to look back down the hall to see if she’s followed. He refuses to treat his wife like a boogeyman no matter how much she has come to fit that mold. He can feel her eyes burning into him from somewhere back at the edge of the living room. The sensation leaves a cold trail of fear up his back as he walks the last four feet to the stairs and then up. He can hear her feet rush across the floor behind him and the rustle of fabric as she darts up the stairs after him. His pulse and his feet speed up as she grows closer but he’s never as fast as she is. Soon she slips up the steps under his foot shoving him aside as she crawls on her hands and feet through his legs and up the last few stairs above. As she passes through his legs, her presence never more clear than when it’s shoving right against him, he smells the clean and medicinal smells of the operating room and the cloying stench of blood. For a moment he’s back in that room with her, listening to her grunt and keen as she works so hard at pushing Sara into the world and then he’s back looking up at her as she slowly considers the landing and where to go from there. His voice is a whisper, one that pleads. “Wendy?

Throughout the history of the church, Christians have tended to elevate the importance of one over the other. For the first 1,500 years of the church, singleness was considered the preferred state and the best way to serve Christ. Singles sat at the front of the church. Marrieds were sent to the back.4 Things changed after the Reformation in 1517, when single people were sent to the back and marrieds moved to the front — at least among Protestants.5 Scripture, however, refers to both statuses as weighty, meaningful vocations. We’ll spend more time on each later in the chapter, but here is a brief overview. Marrieds. This refers to a man and woman who form a one-flesh union through a covenantal vow — to God, to one another, and to the larger community — to permanently, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully love one another. Adam and Eve provide the clearest biblical model for this. As a one-flesh couple, they were called by God to take initiative to “be fruitful . . . fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Singles. Scripture teaches that human beings are created for intimacy and connection with God, themselves, and one another. Marriage is one framework in which we work this out; singleness is another. While singleness may be voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed, temporary or long-term, a sudden event or a gradual unfolding, Christian singleness can be understood within two distinct callings: • Vowed celibates. These are individuals who make lifelong vows to remain single and maintain lifelong sexual abstinence as a means of living out their commitment to Christ. They do this freely in response to a God-given gift of grace (Matthew 19:12). Today, we are perhaps most familiar with vowed celibates as nuns and priests in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church. These celibates vow to forgo earthly marriage in order to participate more fully in the heavenly reality that is eternal union with Christ.6 • Dedicated celibates. These are singles who have not necessarily made a lifelong vow to remain single, but who choose to remain sexually abstinent for as long as they are single. Their commitment to celibacy is an expression of their commitment to Christ. Many desire to marry or are open to the possibility. They may have not yet met the right person or are postponing marriage to pursue a career or additional education. They may be single because of divorce or the death of a spouse. The apostle Paul acknowledges such dedicated celibates in his first letter to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 7). Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as marrieds or singles. Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This may be a radically new concept for you, but stay with me. God intends this rich theological vision to inform our leadership in ways few of us may have considered. Before exploring the connections between leadership and marriage or singleness, it’s important to understand the way marriage and singleness are commonly understood in standard practice among leaders today.

A recent study in the American Journal of Epidemiology followed 123,216 subjects over fourteen years and found that men who spent more than 6 hours a day sitting were 17 percent more likely to die during that time than men who sat for less than 3 hours. For women, the increased risk of death was 34 percent. This increased mortality persisted regardless of whether the participants smoked, were overweight, and—this shocked me—regardless of how much they exercised. Humans aren’t built to sit all day.

Jessica tended Kendrick’s hurts before the fire and Richard only had to unclench his fists two or three times. And then his turn came. He sat down on the floor and Jessica fussed over him. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had done the like. It had probably been at Artane years ago. Somehow, Lady Anne’s touch hadn’t pleased him as Jessica’s did. When she pulled away, he opened his eyes to beg her not to cease, then realized there was nothing left to do. He caught her by the hand and pulled her close, not caring that Kendrick sat behind him and was likely on the verge of laughing. He very carefully pressed his lips against hers. “Thank you.” “You’re extremely welcome.

First, without exception, biblical authors presupposed a premodern view of the world. To illustrate, as with all people in the ancient Near East, the Hebrews believed that the sky was “hard as a molten mirror” (Job 37:18). It had to be hard, in their view, for it was a “dome” that “separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome” (Gen. 1:7). This dome rested on “pillars,” as did the earth as it sat upon the “waters” that encircled it (Ps. 75:3; 104:2–3, 5–6; cf. Job 9:6; 26:11). “Windows” in the solid dome were opened when Yahweh wanted it to rain, allowing the waters “above the dome” to fall to the ground (Gen. 7:11). The sun, moon, and stars were all “lights in the dome” that were placed there to function as “signs and for seasons and for days and years” (Gen. 1:14). The Lord, along with other heavenly beings, sat in a chamber above the dome. From this location God threw lightning bolts (Ps. 18:12–14), shook the pillars (earthquakes? Job 9:6), and caused the wind to blow (Ps. 107:25). We modern people routinely assume this language is merely poetic, but at the time it was the way people really understood the world. It is completely understandable that God would leave the primitive worldview of ancient authors intact as he used ancient authors to communicate his Word. How else could he effectively communicate to the people of the time? Had God attempted to communicate a scientifically accurate view of the world, the theological truth he wanted to convey would not have been communicated. At the same time, we must frankly admit that given what we know about the world today, the view of the cosmos presupposed in the Bible is inaccurate. The earth does not rest on pillars, and the sky is not hard! The Bible’s theological message is unfailing though its view of the cosmos is scientifically incorrect. A

DAY 2 Add a One to All Your Zeros   Jesus said to him, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  — John 14:6   While I was in India speaking at a school, one of the dorm parents asked to talk to me. He turned out to be a great blessing to me as he sat sharing about so many things. He had been a Brahman, one of the elite of Hinduism, worshipped as a god. He had always been taught that there were many ways to God, and yet he began to wonder, “Do I have the right way?” It was this questioning and the Holy Spirit that had brought him to Jesus. Once he confessed his faith, he was banned from going to his house, and after sixteen years, his father died without reconciliation. He is now tolerated and allowed to visit his house, so long as he does not stay. He really does not care, for he has found Jesus. The most interesting point he made was about writing on a chalkboard his qualifications for being a Christian. Under talent he put zero. Under ability he put zero. Under intelligence: zero. Under people skills he put zero. In every category, he put a zero. He looked on the board and all he had written was a line of zeros. Then a man said to him, “Let me show you something. All you have are zeros, six to be exact. Now we will add one to all the zeros, the only ONE that matters. We will add Jesus to all your zeros.” The man then put a one at the front of all the zeros and said, “See? When I added the ONE to the front, where Jesus belongs, your zeros have now become one million. Add Jesus to your zeros and your weaknesses become your strength.

Inside the Lakers’ locker room, the reaction was subdued euphoria. Ceballos was an obnoxious brat who played no defense and went AWOL. Horry, on the other hand, was a 6-foot-9 outside gunner (he was a lifetime 34 percent three-point shooter) and low-post defender joining an operation in need of long-range shooting and low-post defense. It was a trade that, by NBA standards, generated little attention. It was a trade that changed everything. Suddenly, instead of being a towel-throwing pain on an 11-24 team going nowhere fast, Horry was a coveted piece of a first-place club that sat 17 games over .500. During his first four NBA seasons, all with the Rockets, Horry had learned how to play with Hakeem Olajuwon, the 7-foot, 255-pound Nigerian center. He knew his job was to feed off the big man, and that a box score where Olajuwon scored 30 and Horry scored 12 usually meant Houston won. Now, with the Lakers, he was more than happy to acknowledge O’Neal’s place as the center of the basketball universe.

After changing into a yellow day dress with airy pagoda sleeves that ended at the elbow, she went to the family's private upstairs parlor. The family dogs, a pair of small black spaniels named Napoleon and Josephine, saw her in the hallway and trotted after her. The parlor was comfortably cluttered with heaps of colorful cushions on the furniture, a battered piano in the corner, and piles of books everywhere. She sat cross-legged on the carpet with the dogs, smiling as they bounded in and out of her lap excitedly. "We don't need Prince Charming, do we?" she asked them aloud. "No, we do not. There's a patch of sun on the carpet and books nearby- that's all we need to be happy." The spaniels stretched out in a bright yellow rectangle, wriggling and sighing in contentment. After petting and scratching the dogs for a while, Cassandra reached out to a stack of books on a low table, and sorted through them idly. Double Wedding... The Secret Duke... My Dashing Suitor, and other romantic novels she had read and reread. Much lower in the pile, there were books such as History of the Thirty Years' Peace and Life of Nelson, the kind one read in case one was called upon to make insightful comments at dinner.

While Iris mercilessly teased Christine until the poor girl looked ready to start flinging icicles, Alex and Andrew continued their merciless assault on Kevin. “You put the ‘k’ in otaku.” “When people look up otaku in the dictionary, they see your face.” “You’ve even got an otaku meme on Twitter.” “Shut up! I am not an otaku!” Kevin stood up and slammed his hands on the stone table. He glared at his friends. “I’m not! Just because I like anime that doesn’t mean I’m an otaku. And you two have no right to say anything!” He pointed an accusing finger at Alex and Andrew. “You watch and read just as much anime and manga as I do!” “You make a good point,” Alex admitted. “It doesn’t change the fact that you are, indeed, an otaku.” Andrew nodded at his brother’s words. “Only a true otaku would deny being otaku.” “No, they wouldn’t! Otaku are people who proudly proclaim their status even though they know others will look down on them for it. That’s half the reason they get such a bad rep in Japan, and even then, Japanese society has begun to accept otaku culture more readily in the last few years. I once read an article on Rocket News 24 that some people are beginning to think that being otaku isn’t something to be ashamed of.” “And how could you possibly know that unless you were an otaku?” Iris teased. Kevin grabbed his hair and threw his head back. “Arggghhh!” “Poor Kevin.” Lilian giggled. “Getting ganged up on by everyone.” “Ha…” Kevin sat down and pouted at his mate. “You’re not really helping me out, you know. You should be backing me up.” “I can only back you up when something isn’t true.” “Now you’re just being mean.” “I’m sorry,” Lilian said in mock contrite, her eyes glittering with mirth. “Would a hug make it better?” Kevin sniffled. “Maybe.” Lilian spread her arms wide. “Okay. Come here, Kevin.” “Lilian.” “Kevin!” “Lilian!” “Would you two knock it off already!” Christine snapped out of her state of perpetual humiliation long enough to shout at the hugging couple.

When Derek Sivers first built his business CDbaby.com, he set up a standard confirmation email to let customers know their order had been shipped. After a few months, Derek felt that this email wasn’t aligned with his mission—to make people smile. So he sat down and wrote a better one. Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed on a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, June 6th. I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!! —Derek Sivers, Anything You Want The result wasn’t just delighted customers. That one email brought thousands of new customers to CD Baby. The people who got it couldn’t help sharing it with their friends. Try Googling “private CD Baby jet”; you’ll find over 900,000 search results to date. Derek’s email has been cited by business blogs the world over as an example of how to authentically put your words to work for your business.

So I did what I used to do, although I haven’t had to do it for years. I sat in the chair by the fire escape and I closed my eyes and I imagined a dial where my heart should be. The dial was set to how much I was hurting. It could go anywhere from 1 to 10, but I had to be honest about where it was set. Today it was a 6.

So I did what I used to do, although I haven’t had to do it for years. I sat in the chair by the fire escape and I closed my eyes and I imagined a dial where my heart should be. The dial was set to how much I was hurting. It could go anywhere from 1 to 10, but I had to be honest about where it was set. Today it was a 6. I took a deep breath and I imagined the dial clicking down, from 6 – breathe; 5 – breathe; 4 – breathe; 3 – breathe. I let it be at 3; that’s probably my default. I don’t think there could ever be a zero. And yes, I do know it’s not really any way of dealing with things properly, but it can get you through the next couple of hours, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Nokia sat on top of one of the biggest growth markets the world had ever seen, and on top of one of the biggest piles of cash in history. But instead of thinking like an insurgent and investing in the future, it gave out 40 percent dividends and used its cash to buy back large quantities of its own stock. Within just a few years, Apple, Samsung, and soon Google had seized the smartphone market, and Nokia, once a model of innovation and insurgent-style thinking, was in steep decline. A board member, when interviewed about what happened, pointed to internal factors, not competitive moves, and concluded simply, “We were too slow to act.”6

When Lombardi joined the Green Bay Packers in 1959, the team had gone eleven straight seasons without a winning record, and after winning only one of twelve games the previous year, the team fired Lombardi’s predecessor. Upon arriving at training camp as their new head coach, Lombardi made an immediate and indelible first impression on Bart Starr, a struggling third-string, fourth-year quarterback. After leading the players to a meeting room, Lombardi waited in front of a portable blackboard as the players sat down. He picked up a piece of chalk and began to speak. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we have a great deal of ground to cover. We’re going to do things a lot differently than they’ve been done here before . . . [We’re] going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because perfection is not attainable. But we are going to relentlessly chase it because, in the process, we will catch excellence.”6 He paused and stared, his eyes moving from player to player. The room was silent. “I’m not remotely interested in being just good,” he said with an intensity that startled them all.

Jasper, wake up.” His mother shook his shoulder. “You need to get up, baby. Get dressed.” “What?” Jasper Leary opened his eyes. It was still dark outside his window. “What’s wrong?” “We’re goin’ up to the farm. Won’t that be fun, baby?” She flipped on the bedside lamp, blinding him for a moment. Jasper sat up and blinked at the windup clock on the bedside table. It wasn’t even 6: 00 a.m. “C’mon, sweetie,” she called from the hallway. “Let’s go! The day won’t wait.” He was only nine years