book quotes Archives - Page 13 of 18 - Ben Rosenfeld

October 19, 2016

“The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck” Quotes

I recently read “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach To Living A Good Life” by Mark Manson. Despite the constant cursing, it’s one of the most profound books I’ve read in a while. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like them, please buy the book here.

“Despite the book sales and the fame, Bukowski was a loser. He knew it. And his success stemmed not from some determination to be a winner, but from the fact that he knew he was a loser, accepted it, and then wrote honestly about it. He never tried to be anything other than what he was. The genius in Bukowski’s work was not in overcoming unbelievable odds or developing himself into a shining literary light. It was the opposite. It was his simple ability to be completely, unflinchingly honest with himself – especially the worst parts of himself – and to share his failings without hesitation or doubt.” (3)

“Giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health. It causes you to become overly attached to the superficial and fake, to dedicate your life to chasing a mirage of happiness and satisfaction. The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.” (5)

“Our crisis is no longer material; it’s existential, it’s spiritual. We have so much fuckign stuff and so many opportunities that we don’t even know what to give a fuck about anymore.” (8)

“Because there’s an infinite amount of thigns we can now see or know, there are also an infinite number of ways we can discover that we don’t measure up, that we’re not good enough, that things aren’t as great as they could be.” (9)

“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.” (9)

“The more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.” (9)

“Most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fucks do not deserve to be given.” (12)

“Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.” (14)

“No matter where you go, there’s a five-hundred-pound load of shit waiting for you. And that’s perfectly fine. The point isn’t to get away from the shit. THe point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with.” (17)

“Subtlety #2: To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity.” (17)

“There is a premise that underlies a lot of our assumptions and beliefs. The premise is that happiness is algorithmic, that it can be worked for and earned and achieved as if it were getting accepted to law school or building a really complicated Lego set. If I achieve X, then I can be happy. If I look like Y, then I can be happy. If I can be with a person like Z, then I can be happy.
This premise, though, is the problem. Happiness is not a solvable equation. Dissatisfaction and unease are inherent parts of human nature and, as we’ll see, necessary components to creating consistent happiness.” (26)

“We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.” (27)

“Life is essentially an endless series of problems, Mark,” the Disappointment Panda told me. He sipped his drink and adjusted the little pink umbrella. “The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one… Don’t hope for a life without problems,” the panda said. “There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.”” (30)

“Problems never stop; they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded. Happiness comes from solving problems.” (31)

“The secret sauce is in the solving of the problems, not in not having problems in the first place.” (31)

“To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action; it’s an activity, not something that is passively bestowed upon you.” (31)

“True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.” (32)

“Emotions are simply biological signal designed to nudge you in the direction of beneficial change.” (34)

“An obsession and overinvestment in emotion fails us for the simple reason that emotions never last.” (35)

“A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, “What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?” Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.” (36)

“Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.” (40)

“The true measurement of self-worth is not how a person feels about her positive experiences, but rather how she feels about her negative experiences.” (46)

“Construing everything in life so as to make yourself out to be constantly victimized requires just as much selfishness as the opposite.” (56)

“Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. The Internet has not just open-sourced information; it has also open-sourced insecurity, self-doubt, and shame.” (60)

“The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so not because they believe they’re exceptional. On the contrary, they become amazing because they’re obsessed with improvement. And that obsession with improvement stems from an unerring belief that they are, in fact, not that great at all. It’s anti-entitlement. People who become great at something become great because they understand that they’re not already great – they are mediocre, they are average – and that they could be so much better.” (61)

“The question is not whether we evaluate ourselves against others; rather, the question is by what standard do we measure ourselves?” (78)

“Self-improvement is really about prioritizing better values, choosing better things to give a fuck about. Because when you give better fucks, you get better problems. And when you get better problems, you get a better life.” (89)

“Often the only difference between a problem being painful or being powerful is a sense that we chose it, and that we are responsible for it.” (91)

“If you’re miserable in your current situation, chances are it’s because you feel like some part of it is outside your control – that there’s a problem you have no ability to solve, a problem that was somehow thrust upon you without your choosing.” (91)

“When we feel that we’re choosing our problems, we feel empowered. When we feel that our problems are being forced upon us against our will, we feel victimized and miserable.” (91)

“There is a simple realization form which all personal improvement and growth emerges. This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances.
We don’t always control what happens to use. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond.” (94)

“The more we choose to accept responsibility in our lives, the more power we will exercise over our lives.” (96)

“Nobody else is ever responsible for your situation but you. Many people may be to blame for your unhappiness, but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you.” (99)

“If the people in your relationships are selfish and doing hurtful things, it’s likely you are too, you just don’t realize it.” (101)

“You are already choosing, in every moment of every day, what to give a fuck about, so change is as simple as choosing to give a fuck about something else.” (113)

“Evil people never believe that they are evil; rather, they believe that everyone else is evil.” (133)

“My recommendation: don’t be special; don’t be unique. Redefine your metrics in mundane and broad ways. Choose to measure yourself not as a rising star or an undiscovered genius. Choose to measure yourself not as some horrible victim or dismal failure. Instead, measure yourself by more mundane identities: a student, a partner, a friend, a creator. The narrower and rarer the identity you choose for yourself, the more everything will seem to threaten you.” (140)

“If it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.” (146)

“Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something. If someone is better than you at something, then it’s likely because she has failed at it more than you have. If someone is worse than you, it’s likely because he hasn’t been through all of the painful learning experiences you have.” (150)

“It’s growth that generates happiness, not a long list of arbitrary achievements.” (152)

“Just as one must suffer physical pain to build stronger bone and muscle, one must suffer emotional pain to develop greater emotional resilience, a stronger sence of self, increased compassion, and a generally happier life.” (154)

“Life is about not knowing and then doing something anyway. All of life is like this. It never changes. Even when you’re happy.” (158)

“Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it.” (160)

“Someone asked the novelist how he was able to write so consistently and remain inspired and motivated. He replied, “Two hundred crappy words per day, that’s it.” The idea was that if he forced himself to write two hundred crappy words, more often than not the act of writing would inspire him; and before he knew it, he’d have thousands of words down on the page.” (162)

“There’s a bluntness to Russian culture that generally rubs Westerners the wrong way. Gone are the fake niceties and verbal webs of politeness. You don’t smile at strangers or pretend to like anything you don’t. In Russia, if something is stupid, you say it’s stupid. If someone is being an asshole, you tell him he’s being an asshole. If you really like someone and are having a great time, you tell her that you like her and are having a great time. It doesn’t matter if this person is your friend, a stranger, or someone you met five minutes ago on the street.” (167)

“There is such pressure in the West to be likable that people often reconfigure their entire personality depending on the person they’re dealing with.” (170)

“Unhealthy love is based on two people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other – in other words, they’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support.” (175)

“The mark of an unhealthy relationship is two people who try to solve each other’s problems in order to feel good about themselves. Rather, a healthy relationship is when two people solve their own problems in order to feel good about each other.” (177)

“It’s not about giving a fuck about everything your partner gives a fuck about; it’s about giving a fuck about your partner regardless of the fucks he or she gives. That’s unconditional love, baby.” (181)

“When our highest priority is to always make ourselves feel good, or to always make our partner feel good, then nobody ends up feeling good. And our relationship falls apart without our even knowing it.” (182)

“Commitment makes decision-making easier and removes any fear of missing out; knowing that what you already have is good enough, why would you ever stress about chasing more, more, more again? Commitment allows you to focus intently on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would.” (189)

“If there really is no reason to do anything, then there is also no reason to not do anything.” (194)

“Whether you’re listening to Aristotle or the psychologists at Harvard or Jesus Christ or the goddamn Beatles, they all say that happiness comes from the same thing: caring about something greater than yourself, believing that you are a contributing component in some much larger entity, that your life is but a mere side process of some great unintelligible production. This feeling is what people go to church for; it’s what they fight in wars for; it’s what they raise families and save pensions and build bridges and invent cell phones for: this fleeting sense of being part of something greater and more unknowable than themselves.” (206)

Liked the quotes? Buy the book here.

September 21, 2016

“The Charisma Myth” Quotes

I recently read “The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism” by Olivia Fox Cabane. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, click here to buy the book.

“Imagine what your life would be like if you knew that the moment you entered a room, people would immediately take notice, want to hear what you have to say, and be eager to earn your approval. For charismatic people, this is a way of life. Everyone is impacted by their presence. People are magnetically drawn to them and feel strangely compelled to help them in any way they can.” (2)

“Charisma gets people to like you, trust you, and want to be led by you. It can determine whether you’re seen as a follower or a leader, whether your ideas get adopted, and how effectively your projects are implemented.” (2)

“As extensive research in recent years has shown, charisma is the result of specific nonverbal behaviors, not an inherent or magical personal quality.” (4)

“We assume that charismatic people are magnetic every instant of every day. They aren’t.” (4)

“When you meet a charismatic person, you get the impression that they have a lot of power and they like you a lot.” (5)

“The equation that produces charisma is actually fairly simple. ALl you have to do is give the impression that you possess both high power and high warmth, since charismatic behaviors project a combination of these two qualities.” (5)

“A final dimension underlies both of these qualities: presence.” (5)

“Three quick tips to gain an instant charisma boost in conversation:
Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences.
Reduce how quickly and how often you nod.
Pause for two full seconds before you speak.” (11)

“When we’re not fully present in an interaction, people will see it. Our body language sends a clear message that other people read and react to, at least on a subconscious level.” (14)

“Someone who is powerful but not warm can be impressive, but isn’t necessarily perceived as charismatic and can come across as arrogant, cold, or standoffish. Someone who possesses warmth without power can be likeable, but isn’t necessarily perceived as charismatic and can come across as overeager, subservient, or desperate to please.” (20)

“Because what’s in your mind shows up in your body and because people will catch even the briefest microexpression, to be effective, charismatic behaviors must originate in your mind.” (22)

“Lao Tzu reportedly said: “To know others is knowledge. To know oneself is wisdom.” (24)

“Any physical discomfort doesn’t that affects your visible, external state – your body language – even slightly may affect how charismatic you are perceived to be.” (29)

“Signs of fatigue can easily show up in people’s body language as lack of enthusiasm.” (30)

“Responsibility Transfer
Whenever you feel your brain rehashing possible outcomes to a situation, try a transfer of responsibility to alleviate the anxiety.
Sit comfortably or lie down, relax, and close your eyes.
Take two or three deep breaths. As you inhale, imagine drawing clean air toward the top of your head. As you exhale, let that air whoosh through you, washing away all your worries and concerns.
Pick an entity – God, Fat, the Universe, whatever may best suit your beliefs – that you could imagine as benevolent.
Imagine lifting the weight of everything you’re concerned about – this meeting, this interaction, this day – off your shoulders and placing it on the shoulders of whichever entity you’ve chosen.
Visually lift everything off your shoulders and feel the difference as your are now no longer responsible for the outcome of any of these things. Everything is taken care of. You can sit back, relax, and enjoy whatever good you can find along the way.” (34-35)

“The very act of comparing and evaluating hinders our ability to be fully present.” (37)

“When your brain spins negative scenarios, remind yourself that you may not be getting an accurate perception of reality. Your brain might be following its negativity bias, playing up some elements more than others, or omitting some positives entirely.” (49)

“The researchers concluded that deciding to change beliefs was a far more effective and healthier solution than attempting to repress or ignore emotions.” (53)

“In most situations, we don’t know for certain what motivates a person’s actions, so we might as well choose the explanation that is most helpful to us and create a version of events that gets us into the specific mental state we need for charisma.” (53)

“One charismatic entrepreneur told me: “I decide to interpret everything favorably toward myself. It’s not just that I’m optimistic, I’m actually conveniently deluded.” (54)

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” (57)

“Look for little miracles unfolding right now.
Love the confusion.
What if you could trust the Universe, even with this?” (70)

“After fifteen years of speaking professionally, I find that doing even thirty seconds of visualization makes a substantial difference to my performance. It greatly affects how charismatic I am on stage. In fact, every time I don’t run through a visualization just before stepping on stage, I regret it. Even when I know the speech so well I could say it backward, it’s worth using visualization to ensure that I get into the right charismatic mental state.” (72)

“Before key meetings, she’ll imagine “the smiles on their faces because they liked me and they are confident about the value I’m bringing them. I’ll imagine as much detail as I can, even seeing the wrinkles around their eyes as they’re smiling.” She visualizes the whole interaction, all the way through to the firm handshakes that close the meeting, sealing the deal.” (73)

“To boost your charisma, choose figures who represent complete self -confidence, or warmth and caring, or calm and serenity. Or you might even find some figures who embody all the elements at once. Visualize yourself going to these figures for a “pep talk” anytime you feel you need one. Thanks to the brain’s wonderful placebo response, this will produce effects even if it doesn’t feel real.” (74)

“Gratitude has a special advantage for those of us who sometimes find it uncomfortable to connect with others. It can give us charismatic warmth without having to connect with anyone.” (75)

“When our only aim is to broadcast goodwill, it takes the pressure off. We’re no longer striving, struggling, pushing for things to go in a certain direction. And since we’re less concerned about how the interaction goes, we can both feel and project more charismatic confidence. Goodwill is the simple state of wishing others well.” (80)

“One simple but effective way to start is to try to find three things you like about the person you want to feel goodwill toward. No matter whom it is you’re talking to, find three things to appreciate or approve of – even if these are as small as “their shoes are shined” or “they were on time.” When you start searching for positive elements, your mental state changes accordingly and then sweeps through your body language.” (80)

“In any interaction, imagine the person you’re speaking to, and all those around you, as having invisible angel wings.” (81)

“Imagine that you’re all a team of angels working together, all doing your wholehearted best.” (81)

“While looking at someone, think, I like you. And I like you just for you.” (81)

“Compassion is empathy plus goodwill: you understand how they feel, and you wish them well.” (82)

“Your willingness to focus on others’ well-being is all you need to positively change your body language. This will be enough to give people the feeling that you really care about them, and is one of the core components of charisma.” (82)

“Kristin Neff defines self-compassion as a three-step process: First, realizing that we’re experiencing difficulties. Second, responding with kindness and understanding toward ourselves when we are suffering or feel inadequate, rather than being harshly self-critical. Third, realizing that whatever we’re going through is commonly experienced by all human beings, and remembering that everyone goes through difficult times.” (86)

“For confidence, assertiveness, and to be able to emanate gravitas, imagine playing the role of a military general – take a wide stance, puff up your chest, broaden your shoulders, stand straight, and confidently put your arms behind your back. Feel the effect of this posture internally.” (92)

“For a boost in both energy and warmth, stand up, stretch your hands as high up as possible, inhale as much as you can – imagine your ribcage expanding, doubling in size – make the biggest smile you can and look upward, hold for a second, then relax everything.” (92)

“- Creating an optimal mental state is crucial to unleashing our full charisma potential.
– Visualization can help you create the right mental state and thus the right charismatic body language. To make visualizations most effective, vividly engage all five senses in your imagination.
– You can increase both warmth and confidence by practicing gratitude, goodwill, and compassion for others as well as for yourself.
– Just as professional athletes and performers do, plan a gradual warm-up to reach your peak charismatic performance. Before important events, avoid experiences that would impair your mental state and plan warmth- and confidence-boosting activities instead.
– Your body affects your mind. Flip the visualization technique on its head and practice adopting the right posture and facial expressions to access more of almost any desired internal state.” (97)

“In another experiment, a researcher conducted fake surveys in shopping malls wearing either a designer-logo sweater or a no-logo sweater. When faced with the designer label, 52 percent of people agreed to take the survey, compared with only 13 percent who saw no logo. Expensive logos also affected people’s charitable impulses. Research assistants brought in nearly twice as many donations when their shirts bore a visible designer label than they did when they wore (otherwise identical) no-label shirts.” (105)

“As always, body language trumps all other signs of charisma. Even if all the other signals are present, a body language of insecurity will undermine any possibility of authority charisma. Conversely, you can gain a certain measure of authority charisma through body language alone if it’s strong enough.” (105)

“If, for instance, you can get yourself into a mental state of goodwill, this would show in your facial expressions and body language and register with people on a deep emotional level. People perceiving this would want to like you, want to see your behaviors and actions in the most positive way. Think of goodwill as your charisma safety net: as long as you can get into a state of goodwill, you will have the absolute best chances of getting your charisma right.” (111)

“According to economist John Kenneth Galbraith, when “faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” (115)

“When people are similar in terms of attire, appearance, demeanor and speech, they automatically assume they share similar social backgrounds, education, and even values.” (118)

“Clothing, essentially, is modern-day tribal wear.” (118)

“An easy way to start interactions in a way that both communicates warmth and sends the conversation down the right path is to offer a compliment about something the person is wearing. This would be a great opener when you’re aiming to broadcast either kindness charisma or focus charisma… continue with an open-ended question, such as “What’s the story behind it?”… Another good question to break the ice with is “Where are you from?”… You can follow up with “What was it like growing up there?”… “To keep people talking, simply ask open-ended questions, such as “What brought you here tonight?” or “How are you connected to this event?”” (123)

“Aim to keep your questions focused on positive subjects because people will associate you with whatever feelings your conversation generates.” (123)

“Even when you’re speaking, the one word that should pop up most often in your conversation is not I but you.” (124)

“What impacts people isn’t the words or content used. Rather, they remember how it felt to be speaking with you.” (126)

“Good listeners know never, ever to interrupt – not even if the impulse to do so comes from excitement about something the other person just said… Great listeners know to let others interrupt them… Master listeners know one extra trick, one simple but extraordinarily effective habit that will make people feel truly listened to and understood: they pause before they answer.” (130)

“When someone has spoken, see if you can let your facial expression react first, showing that you’re absorbing what they’ve just said and giving their brilliant statement the consideration it deserves. Only then, after about two seconds, do you answer.” (131)

“Because we’re constantly creating associations in people’s minds, it’s crucial in both business and social situations to be aware of how you’re making people feel. To be charismatic, you need to create strong positive associations and avoid creating negative ones.” (133)

“Imagine that the person you’re speaking with is the main star in a movie you’re watching right now. This will help you find them more interesting, and there’s even a chance that you’ll make them feel like a movie star, too.” (135)

“Image generation has a powerful impact on emotions and physiological states and a high impact on brain function.” (136)

“Whenever you can, choose to speak in pictures. You’ll have a much greater impact, and your message will be far more memorable.” (136)

“Presidents rated as charismatic, such as FDR and Abraham Lincoln, used twice as many visual metaphors in their inaugural addresses as did those rated as noncharismatic.”

“”When you tell someone, “No problem,” “Don’t worry,” or “Don’t hesitate to call,” for example, there’s a chance their brain will remember “problem,” “worry,” or “hesitate” instead of your desire to support them. To counter this negative effect, use phrases like “We’ll take care of it” or “Please feel free to call anytime.” (138)

“The degree to which your voice fluctuates affects your persuasiveness and your charisma. Increasing voice fluctuation means making your voice vary in any of the following ways: pitch (high or low), volume (loud or quiet), tone (resonant or hollow), tempo (fast or slow), or rhythm (fluid or staccato).” (140)

“One classic exercise to hone your projection skills is to imagine that your words are arrows. As you speak, aim them at different groups of listeners.” (141)

“A slow, measured tempo with frequent pauses conveys confidence.” (141)

“Broadcast power through your voice by 1) Speak slowly. 2) Pause. 3) Drop intonation. 4) Check your breathing.” (141)

“In order to project more warmth in your voice: smile.” (141)

“Often, just thinking about smiling is enough to give your voice more warmth.” (142)

“Imagine that you’re a preacher exhorting your congregation.” (142)

“Alan Weiss says, “Logic makes people think. Emotion makes them act.” Which would you rather have? If you speak only to people’s logical mind, you’re missing half the playing field. Charisma, which makes us feel impressed, inspired, or thrillingly special, speaks to our emotional side.” (144)

“Mirroring is also one of the few techniques that can help overcome a bad first impression.” (149)

“When people are sitting across from each other with a table dividing them, they tend to speak in shorter sentences, are more likely to argue, and can recall less of what was said.” (152)

“Keep eye contact for three full seconds at the end of your interaction with someone.” (154)

“Charismatic eye contacts means switching to a softer focus. This immediately relaxes our eyes and face, and quiets down our stress system. Here are three simple steps to help you switch to a soft, open focus: First, close your eyes. Focus on the space around you, the empty space in the room. Now focus on the space filling the entire universe. That’s it – you’ve moved into “soft focus.” (155)

“Few things gain you charisma points more than improving your eye contact. The next time you’re in a conversation, try to regularly check whether your eyes are feeling tense. If you feel the slightest bit of tension around your eyes, aim to relax them. You can use any favorite quick visualization (just one heartwarming image can do the trick) or aim to move into soft focus.” (156)

“Follow these seven steps to convey confident body language:
Make sure you can breathe. Loosen any clothing if need be.
Stand up and shake up your body.
Take a wide stance and plant your feet firmly on the ground. A wide, stable stance helps you both feel and project more confidence.
Stretch your arms to the ceiling, trying to touch it with your fingertips.
Now stretch your arms to the walls on either side of you, trying to touch them.
Bring your arms loosely to your sides, and roll your shoulders up and then back.
INFLATE. Try to take up as much space as possible. Imagine puffing up like a gorilla, doubling in size.” (159)

“High-status, high-confidence body language is characterized by how few movements are made.” (160)

“Nodding once for emphasis or to express agreement is fine and can be an effective communication method, but nodding three or four times in rapid succession is not.” (161)

“Fidgeting decreases presence, thus charisma. Even when you have warmth, confidence, and are mentally present, if you are physically restless, you can’t be charismatic. Your body language is sending distracting signals.” (161)

“Be aware, however, that broadcasting too much power can come across as either arrogant or intimidating for some people. The warmth-enhancing techniques, such as keeping your eyes in soft focus, will counter this. You can also aim to bring your chin down a few degrees – imagine a king bowing his head to a noble emissary. This had a double benefit. It avoids giving the impression that you’re contemptuously looking down your nose at someone and simultaneously makes you appear more thoughtful, attentive, and deliberate as your eyes automatically open wider.” (162)

“Ask them for something they can give without incurring any cost: their opinion. Asking for someone’s opinion is a better strategy than asking for their advice, because giving advice feels like more effort, as they have to tailor a recommendation to your situation, whereas with an opinion, they can just spout whatever is on their mind.” (168)

“The more appreciation you express and the more you show them the impact they’ve had on you, the more they will like you and feel invested in your success. They’ll rationalize in your favor. When you show people how they’ve impacted you, they feel that they’ve in a sense made you. This sense of ownership gives them a vested interest, and they identify with you; you become part of their identity. Therefore, they feel more responsibility for ensuring your success.” (169)

“Hostility is often nothing but the external manifestation of internal turmoil.” (170)

“Write out the e-mail as you normally would, but before you send it, simply cut and paste so that whatever pertains to the other person appears first and most prominently.” (185)

“There are a few tricks to owning the stage… First, when you stand, be sure to have a wide stance, well balanced on both feet… Second, practice without a podium or a lectern… moving comfortably around the stage will make you appear much more confident, powerful, and charismatic… Third, find the right volume to project confidence.” (193)

“As you roam about the stage, give one to two seconds of eye contact per person.” (194)

“It’s really worth paying attention to your tempo because the slower you speak, the more thoughtful and deliberate you will sound, and the more attention people will give to what you say.” (196)

“When you walk on stage, come to the center, face the audience, and stop. Remain completely silent as you count three full seconds while slowly sweeping your eyes across the crowd and making eye contact. This may feel endless, but it will be well worth it.” (196)

“Business moguls and entertainers make mistakes purposefully to make themselves more relatable to the audience.” (198)

“As soon as you start worrying about yourself – wondering how you’re doing, or if this or that sentence was good enough – self-criticism can easily arise. If, instead, you can make it all about your audience – wondering how they’re doing – you take the focus off yourself, lift your self-consciousness, and get into a state of goodwill, which will be read and appreciated by the audience.” (199)

“People who respond to crisis with bold, decisive actions will be perceived as charismatic.” (201)

“Giving people a sense of ownership for your success is a great way to prevent resentment and engender good feelings, such as pride and loyalty, instead.” (208)

“Showing vulnerability and humanity makes you more relatable and helps to avoid the feelings of alienation, which is a real risk when your charisma gives you a touch of the superhuman.” (216)

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September 9, 2016September 9, 2016

“Shoe Dog” Quotes

I recently read Shoe Dog: A Memoir By The Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, click here to buy the book.

“History is one long processional of crazy ideas. The things I loved most – books, sports, democracy, free enterprise – started as crazy ideas. For that matter, few ideas are as crazy as my favorite thing, running. It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s risky. The rewards are few and far from guaranteed. When you run around an oval track, or down an empty road, you have no real destination. At least, none that can fully justify the effort. The act itself becomes the destination. It’s not just that there’s no finish line; it’s that you define the finish line. Whatever pleasures or gains you derive from the act of running, you must find them within. It’s all in how you frame it, how you sell it to yourself.” (5)

“I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy… just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where “there” is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.” (5)

“Of course, General MacArthur was deeply flawed. But he knew that. You are remember, he said, prophetically, for the rules you break.” (32)

“Driving back to Portland I’d puzzle over my sudden success at selling. I’d been unable to sell encyclopedias, and I’d despised it to boot. I’d been slightly better at selling mutual funds, but I’d felt dead inside. So why was selling shoes so different? Because, I realized, it wasn’t selling. I believed in running. I believed that if people got out and ran a few miles every day, the world would be a better place, and I believed these shoes were better to run in. people, sensing my belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, I decided. Belief is irresistible.” (56)

“The art of competing, I’d learned from track, was the art of forgetting, and I now reminded myself of that fact. You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past. You must forget that internal voice screaming, begging, “Not one more step!” And when it’s not possible to forget, you must negotiate with it.” (61)

“There were many ways down Mount Fuji, according to my guidebook, but only one way up. Life lesson in that.” (66)

“Starting my own business was the only thing that made life’s other risks – marriage, Vegas, alligator wrestling – seem like sure things.” (94)

“I told myself: Life is growth. You grow or you die.” (145)

“Each of us found pleasure, whenever possible, in focusing on one small task. One task, we often said, clears the mind.” (147)

“Yes, I thought. Confidence. More than equity, more than liquidity, that’s what a man needs. I wished I had more. I wished I could borrow some. But confidence was cash. You had to have some to get some. And people were loath to give it to you.” (164)

“Prefontaine pushed himself to the brink and beyond. This was often a counterproductive strategy, and sometimes it was plainly stupid, and occasionally it was suicidal. But it was always uplifting for the crowd. No matter the sport – no matter the human endeavor, really – total effort will win people’s hearts.” (210)

“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way – that leaves us.” (214)

“I opened by telling Strasser that it was all a foregone conclusion, really. “You’re one of us,” I said. One of us. He knew what those words meant. We were the kind of people who simply couldn’t put up with corporate nonsense. We were the kind of people who wanted our work to be play. But meaningful play. We were trying to slay Goliath, and though Strasser was bigger than two Goliaths, at heart he was an utter David. We were trying to create a brand, I said, but also a culture. We were fighting against conformity, against boringness, against drudgery. More than a product, we were trying to sell an idea – a spirit. I don’t know if I ever fully understood who we were and what we were doing until I heard myself saying it all that day to Strasser.” (250)

“It was us against the world, and we felt damned sorry for the world. That is, when we weren’t righteously pissed off at it. Each of us had been misunderstood, misjudged, dismissed. Shunned by bosses, spurned by luck, rejected by society, shortchanged by fate when looks and other natural graces were handed out. We’d each been forged by early failure. We’d each given ourselves to some quest, some attempt at validation or meaning, and fallen short.” (301)

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” (302)

“I still didn’t believe in the power of advertising. At all. A product, I thought, speaks for itself, or it doesn’t. In the end, it’s only quality that counts.” (313)

“Penny and I decided to buy a bigger house. It was a strange thing to do, in the midst of an apocalyptic fight with the government. But I liked the idea of acting as if things were going to work out. Fortune favors the brave, that sort of thing. I also liked the idea of a change of scenery. May, I thought, it will initiate a change of luck.” (320)

“When you see only problems, you’re not seeing clearly.” (327)

“There’s no shoe school, no University of Footwear from which we could recruit. We needed to hire people with sharp minds, that was our priority, and accountants and lawyers had at least proved that they could master a difficult subject. And pass a big test. Most had also demonstrated basic competence. When you hired an accountant, you knew he or she could count. When you hired a lawyer, you knew he or she could talk. When you hired a marketing expert, or product developer, what did you know? Nothing. You couldn’t predict what he or she could do, or if he or she could do anything. And the typical business school graduate? He or she didn’t want to start out with a bag selling shoes. Plus, they all had zero experience, so you were simply rolling the dice based on how well they did in an interview. We didn’t have enough margin for error to roll the dice on anyone.” (328)

“For some, I realize, business is the all-out pursuit of profits, period, full stop, but for us business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood. Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day business of the human body isn’t our mission as human beings. It’s a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living – and at some point in the late 1970s, I did, too. I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough ot sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great businesses do, to create, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud. When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is – you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully, and if that’s business, all right, call me a businessman. Maybe it will grown on me.” (353)

“I walked out of the room, barely hearing the beeping machines, the laughing nurses, the patient groaning down the hall. I thought of that phrase, It’s just business.” It’s never just business. It never will be. If it ever does become just business, that will mean that business is very bad.” (370)

“I keep thinking of one line in The Bucket List. “You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.”” (370)

“I said simply: “How did you do it?”
I thought I saw the corners of his mouth flicker. A smile? Maybe?
General Giap thought. And thought. “I was,” he said, “a professor of the jungle.”” (376)

“I tell them about the untapped resources, natural and human, that the world has at its disposal, the abundant ways and means to solve its many crises. All we have to do, I tell the students, is work and study, study and work, hard as we can. Put another way: We must all be professors of the jungle.” (377)

“When it came rolling in, the money affected us all. Not much, and not for long, because none of us was ever driven by money. But that’s the nature of money. Whether you have it or not, whether you want it or not, whether you like it or not, it will try to define your days. Our task as human being is not to let it.” (379)

“It’s all the same drive. The same dream. It would be nice to help them avoid the typical discouragements. I’d tell them to hit pause, think long and hard about how they want to spend their time, and with whom they want to spend it for the next forty years. I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties not to settle for a job or profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the high will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.” (382)

“I’d like to remind them that America isn’t the entrepreneurial Shangri-La people think. Free enterprise always irritates the kinds of trolls who live to block, to thwart, to say no, sorry, no. And it’s always been this way. Entrepreneurs have always been outgunned, outnumbered. They’ve always fought uphill, and the hill has never been steeper. America is becoming less entrepreneurial, not more.” (382)

“Luck plays a big role. Yes, I’d like to publicly acknowledge the power of luck. Athletes get lucky, poets get lucky, businesses get lucky, Hard work is critical, a good team is essential, brains and determination are invaluable, but luck may decide the outcome.” (382)

“Put it this way. The harder you work, the better your luck.” (382)

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August 8, 2016August 5, 2016

“The Power of Positive Thinking” Quotes

I recently read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“If you feel that you are defeated and have lost confidence in your ability to win, sit down, take a piece of paper and make a list, not of the factors that are against you, but of those that are for you.”

“People who were carrying worries in their minds might go to the stern of the vessel and imaginatively take each anxious thought out of the mind, drop it overboard, and watch it disappear in the wake of the ship.” (18)

“How we think we feel has a definite effect on how we actually feel physically. If your mind tells you that you are tired, the body mechanism, the nerves, and the muscles accept the fact. If your mind is intensely interested, you can keep on at an activity indefinitely.” (29)

“It is not hard work that drains off energy but emotional upheaval.” (31)

“Relax physically. Then conceive of your mind as likewise relaxing.” (34)

“He was pouring himself out, and you never lose energy and vitality in so doing. You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired doing nothing. You don’t have to be tired. Get interested in something. Get absolutely enthralled in something. Throw yourself into it with abandon. Get out of yourself. Be somebody. Do something. Don’t sit around moaning about things, reading the papers, and saying, “Why don’t they do something?” The man who is out doing something isn’t tired. If you’re not getting into good causes, no wonder you’re tired. You’re disintegrating. You’re deteriorating. You’re dying on the vine. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. You won’t have time to think about yourself and get bogged down in your emotional difficulties.” (35)

“Energy drainage occasioned by fear and guilt is of such an amount as to leave little power to be applied to a person’s job. The result is that he tires quickly.” (37)

“The basic factor in psychology is the realizable wish. The man who assumes success tends already to have success. People who assume failure tend to have failure. When either failure or success is picturized it strongly tends to actualize in terms equivalent to the mental image pictured.” (46)

“Following are ten rules for getting effective results from prayer:
Set aside a few minutes every day. Do not say anything. Simply practice thinking about God. This will make your mind spiritually receptive.
Then pray orally, using simple, natural words. Tell God anything that is on your mind. Do not think you must use stereotyped pious phrases. Talk to God in your own language. He understands it.
Pray as you go about the business of the day, on the subway or bus or at your desk. Utilize minute prayers by closing your eyes to shut out the world and concentrating briefly on God’s presence. The more you do this every day the nearer you will feel God’s presence.
Do not always ask when you pray, but instead affirm that God’s blessings are being vien, and spend most of your prayers giving thanks.
Pray with the belief that sincere prayers can reach out and surround your loved ones with God’s love and protection.
Never use a negative thought in prayer. Only positive thoughts get results.
Always express willingness to accept God’s will. Ask for what you want, but be willing to take what God gives you. It may be better than what you ask for.
Practice the attitude of putting everything in God’s hands. Ask for the ability to do your best and to leave the results confidently to God.
Pray for people you do not like or who have mistreated you. Resentment is blockade number one of spiritual power.
Make a list of people for whom to pray. The more you pray for other people, especially those not connected with you, the more prayer results will come back to you.” (56)

“You can be unhappy if you want to be. It is the easiest thing in the world to accomplish. Just choose unhappiness. Go around telling yourself that things aren’t going well, that nothing is satisfactory, and you can be quite sure of being unhappy. But say to yourself, “Things are going nicely. Life is good. I choose happiness,” and you can be quite certain of having your choice.” (58)

“Children are more expert in happiness than adults. The adult who can carry the spirit of a child into middle and old age is a genius, for he will preserve the truly happy spirit for which God endowed the young.” (58)

“We manufacture our own unhappiness by thinking unhappy thoughts, by the attitudes which we habitually take, such as the negative feeling that everything is going to turn out badly, or that other people are getting what they do not deserve and we are failing to get what we do deserve.
Our unhappiness is further distilled by saturating the consciousness with feelings of resentment, ill will, and hate. The unhappiness-producing process always makes important use of the ingredients of fear and worry.” (60)

“Make a mental list of happy thoughts and pass them through your mind several times every day. If an unhappiness thought should enter your mind, immediately stop, consciously eject it, and substitute a happiness thought. Every morning before arising, lie relaxed in bed and deliberately drop happy thoughts into your conscious mind.” (61)

“While dressing or shaving or getting breakfast, say aloud a few such remarks as the following, “I believe this is going to be a wonderful day. I believe I can successfully handle all the problems that will arise today. I feel good physically, mentally, emotionally. It is wonderful to be alive. I am grateful for all that I have had, for all that I now have, and for all that I shall have. Things aren’t going to fall apart. God is here and He is with me and He will see me through. I thank God for every good thing.”” (62)

“The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.” (64)

“If happiness is determined by our thoughts it is necessary to drive off the thoughts which make for depression and discouragement.” (67)

“Accumulated problems had swamped his mind which was seeking release in retreat from a world which was too much for his depleted energy. His principal trouble was in his depressed thought pattern.” (67)

“Life is so daily.” (72)

“To go fast, row slowly.” (77)

“Slow down, for whatever you really want will be there when you get there if you work toward it without stress, without pressing.” (77)

“1. Sit relaxed in a chair. Completely yield yourself to the chair. Starting with your toes and proceeding ot the top of your head, conceive of every portion of the body as relaxing. Affirm relaxation by saying, “my toes are relaxed-my fingers-my facial muscles.”
2. Think of your mind as the surface of a lake in a storm, tossed by waves and in tumult. But now the waves subside, and the surface of the lake is placid and unruffled.
3. Spend two or three minutes thinking of the most beautiful and peaceful scenes you have ever beheld, as for example, a mountain at sunset, or a deep valley filled with the hush of early morning, or a woods at noonday, or moonlight upon rippling waters. In memory relive these scenes.
4. Repeat slowly, quietly, bringing out the melody in each, a series of words which express quietness and peace, as for example, (a) tranquility (say it very deliberately and in a tranquil manner); (b) serenity; © quietness. Think of other such words and repeat them.
5. Make a mental list of times in your life when you have been conscious of God’s watchful care and recall how, when you were worried and anxious, He brought things out right and took care of you.” (82-83)

“When you expect the best, you release a magnetic force in your mind which by a law of attraction tends to bring the best to you. But if you expect the worst, you release from your mind the power of repulsion which tends to force the best from you. It is amazing how a sustained expectation of the best sets in motion forces which cause the best to materialize.” (86)

“A famous Canadian athletic coach, Ace Percival, says that most people, athletes as well as nonathletes, are “holdouts,” that is to say, they are always keeping something in reserve. They do not invest themselves 100 percent in competition. Because of that fact they never achieve the highest of which they are capable.” (88)

“Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow.” (89)

“Whenever you have a bar, that is to say a barrier, in front of you, stop, close your eyes, visualize everything that is above the bar and nothing that is below it, then imaginatively throw “your heart” over that bar and see yourself as being given lifting power to rise above it. Believe that you are experiencing this upthrust of force. You will be amazed at the lifting force you will receive. If in the depth of your mind you visualize the best and employ the powers of faith and energy, you will get the best.” (93)

“A man who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes his work with the assurance of success magnetizes his condition. He draws to himself the creative powers of the universe.” (94)

“What the mind profoundly expects it tends to receive. Perhaps this is true because what you really expect is what you actually want. Unless you really want something sufficiently to create an atmosphere of positive factors by your dynamic desire, it is likely to elude you.” (96)

““He was never defeated by the discouraging vicissitudes of the game.” It means, does it not, that when the game seemed to go against him he did not let discouragement creep in nor negative thoughts dominate and thus lose the power needed to win. This mental and spiritual quality made that man a champion. He was able to face obstacles, to stand up to them and overcome them.” (104)

“If you are far down as you can get there is no further down you can go. There is only one direction you can take from this position, and that is up. So your situation is quite encouraging.” (104)

“Most of our obstacles, as a matter of fact, are mental in character.
“Ah,” you may object, “mine are not mental, mine are real.”
Perhaps so, but your attitude toward them is mental. The only possible way you can have an attitude is by the mental process, and what you think about your obstacles largely determines what you do about them.” (107)

“I believe I am always divinely guided. I believe I will always take the right turn of the road. I believe God will always make a way where there is no way.” (113)

“What is worry? It is simply an unhealthy and destructive mental habit. You were not born with the worry habit. You acquired it. And because you can change any habit and any acquired attitude, you can cast worry from your mind.” (114)

“Conceive of yourself as actually emptying your mind of all anxiety and fear. Picture all worry thoughts as flowing out as you would let water flow from a basin by removing the stopper. Repeat the following affirmation during this visualization: “With God’s help I am now emptying my mind of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.” Repeat this slowly five times, then add, “I believe that my mind is now emptied of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.” (116)

“The world in which you live is not primarily determined by outward conditions and circumstances but by thoughts that habitually occupy your mind.” (164)

“If you think in negative terms you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms you will achieve positive results.” (165)

“1. For the next twenty-four hours, deliberately speak hopefully about everything, about your job, about your health, about your future. Go out of your way to talk optimistically about everything. This will be difficult, for possibly it is your habit to talk pessimistically. From this negative habit you must restrain yourself even if it requires an act of will.
2. After speaking hopefully for twenty-four hours, continue the practice for one week, then you can be permitted to be “realistic” for a day or two. You will discover that what you meant by “realistic” a week ago was actually pessimistic, but what you now mean by “realistic’ is something entirely different; it is the dawning of the positive outlook. When most people say they are being “realistic” they delude themselves: they are simply being negative.
3. You must feed your mind even as you feed your body, and to make your mind healthy you must feed it nourishing, wholesome thoughts…
5. Make a list of your friends to determine who is the most positive thinker among them and deliberately cultivate his society. Do not abandon your negative friends, but get closer to those with a positive point of view for a while, until you have absorbed their spirit, then you can go back among your negative friends and give them your newly acquired thought pattern without taking on their negativism.
6. Avoid argument, but whenever a negative attitude is expressed, counter with a positive and optimistic opinion.” (173-174)

“First, collapse physically. Practice this several times a day. Let go every muscle in the body. Conceive of yourself as a jellyfish, getting your body into complete looseness. Form a mental picutre of a huge burlpa bag of potatoes. Then mentally cut the bag, allowing the potatoes to roll out. Think of yourself as the bag.
What is more relaxed than an empty burlap bag?
The second element in the formula is to “drain the mind.” Several times each day drain the mind of all irritation, all resentment, disappointment, frustration, and annoyance. Unless you drain the mind of all irritation, all resentment, disappointment, frustration, and annoyance. Unless you drain the mind frequently and regularly, these unhappy thoughts will accumulate until a major blasting-out process will be necessary. Keep the mind drained of all factors which would impede the flow of relaxed power.” (182)

“Dale Carnegie spends a quarter-hour in meditation. He says he leaves his office for this purpose when busiest. This demonstrates control of time rather than being controlled by it.” (183)

“1. Don’t get the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. Don’t strain so hard. Don’t take yourself so seriously.
2. Determine to like your work. Then it will become a pleasure, not drudgery. Perhaps you do not need to change your job. Change yourself and your work will seem different.
3. Plan your work-work your plan. Lack of system produces that “I’m swamped” feeling.
4. Don’t try to do everything at once. That is why time is spread out. Heed that wise advice from the Bible, “This one thing I do.”
5. Get a correct mental attitude, remembering that ease or difficulty in your work depends upon how you think about it. Think it’s hard and you make it hard. Think it’s easy and it tends to become easy.
6. Become efficient in your work. “Knowledge is power” (over your job). It is always easier to do a thing right.
7. Practice being relaxed. Easy always does it. Don’t press or tug. Take it in your stride.
8. Discipline yourself not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Accumulation of undone jobs makes your work harder. Keep your work up to schedule.” (184-185)

“He liked himself too well, and to build up his self-esteem he disliked others. He was suffering from self-love, a chief cure for which is the practice of love for others.” (192)

“Getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them.” (193)

“Don’t deflate people. Build them up and they will love you for it.” (195)

“1. Learn to remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing. A man’s name is very important to him.
2. Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you-be and old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual. Be homey.
3. Acquire the quality fo relaxed easy-goingness so that things do not ruffle you.
4. Don’t be egotistical. Guard against giving the impression that you know it all. Be natural and normally humble.
5. Cultivate the quality of being interesting so that people will want to be with you and get something of stimulating value from their association with you.
6. Study to get the “scratchy” elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.
7. Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, every misunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances.
8. Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely. Remember what Will Rogers said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Try to be that way.
9. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone’s achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.
10. Get a deep spiritual experience so that you have something to give people that will help them to be stronger and meet life more effectively. Give strength to people and they will give affection to you.” (197)

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August 1, 2016July 29, 2016

“Success and Luck” Quotes

I recently read “Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy” by Robert H. Frank. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“Because the contests that mete out society’s biggest prizes are so bitterly competitive, talent and effort alone are rarely enough to ensure victory. In almost every case, a substantial measure of luck is also necessary.” (3)

“Taking a risk means that a successful outcome isn’t certain. So if Varney took risks and was successful, he was lucky by definition!” (5)

“Branko Milanovic has estimated, roughly half of the variance in incomes across persons worldwide is explained by only two factors: country of residence and the income distribution within that country.” (7)

“Napoleon Bonaparte once observed, “Ability is of little account without opportunity.” (7)

“So if you want to be smart and highly energetic, the most important single step you could take is to choose the right parents. But if you have such qualities, on what theory would it make sense for you to claim moral credit for them? YOu didn’t choose your parents, nor did you have much control over the environment in which you were raised. You were just lucky.
Many people don’t like to work hard and also have limited endowments of cognitive abilities and other traits that are highly valued in the marketplace. In the competitive environments most of us inhabit, those people are unlucky.
In short, even if talent and hard work alone were enough to ensure material success – which they are not – luck would remain an essential part of the story. People with a lot of talent and an inclination to work hard are extremely fortunate.” (8)

“Chance events have always mattered, of course, but in some respects they’ve grown more important in recent decades. One reason for that has been the spread and intensification of what the economist Philip Cook and I have called winner-take-all markets. These markets often arise when technology enables the most gifted performers in an arena to extend their reach.” (9)

“In such winner-take-all markets, the quality difference between best and second best is often barely perceptible, but the corresponding difference in rewards can be enormous.” (10)

“It’s one thing to say that someone who works 1 percent harder than others or is 1 percent more talented deserves 1 percent more income. But the importance of chance looms much larger when such small performance differences translate into thousands-fold differences in earnings.
The spread of winner-take-all markets has amplified the importance of chance in a second way. In almost all cases, the prodigious rewards that accrue to a handful of winners in these markets attract enormous numbers of contestants. And the more contestants there are, the more luck matters.” (10)

“Denying the importance of luck may actually help people surmount the many obstacles that litter almost every path to success.” (11)

“Perhaps the most important such obstacle is that most of us find it harder to summon effort when the resulting rewards are either delayed or uncertain. Narratives that stress luck’s importance call attention to the fact that not even the most diligent current efforts can guarantee future success and by so doing may encourage some to sit back and hope for the best.” (11)

“Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon estimated, for example, that couples who spent more than $20,000 on their weddings were more than 12 percent more likely to divorce during any given year than were those who spent between $5,000 and $10,000.” (15)

“The Music Lab findings suggest that many songs (or books or movies) that go on to become hits owe much of their success to the fact that the first people to review them just happened to like them. Works of unambiguously high quality are of course more likely to earn positive early reviews and may succeed even in the face of some negative early commentary. But most artistic endeavors elicit a broad range of subjective evaluations. Some go on to succeed simply because the first people to express their opinions about them publicly just happened to come from the right tail of the opinion distribution. Which is to say, many artistic endeavors owe their success, at least in part, to pure dumb luck.” (31)

“To acknowledge that seemingly trivial random events often matter enormously is not to suggest that success in life is independent of talent and effort. In most competitive arenas, those who do well are almost invariably both highly talented and incredibly hardworking.” (39)

“Charlie Munger has written, “The safest way to try to get what you want is to try to deserve what you want.”” (39)

“It is far more likely that a book of given quality will become a best seller if it was written by an author of earlier best sellers.” (45)

“Winner-take-all markets generally display two characteristic features. One is that rewards depend less on absolute performance than on relative performance… Second is that rewards tend to be highly concentrated in the hands of a few top performers. That can occur for many reasons, but most often it’s a consequence of production technologies that extend a given performer’s reach.” (45-46)

“The top one-thousandth of 1 percent of song titles now account for a much larger proportion of sales (15 percent in 2011, up from only 7 percent in 2007).
Trends for weak-selling titles have also been running counter to the long-tail prediction. THe proportion of titles selling fewer than one hundred copies annually, for example, was 94 percent in 2011, up from 91 percent in 2007.” (48)

“CEOs of the largest American corporations, who were paid forty-two times as much as the average worker as recently as 1980, are now paid more than four hundred times as much.” (51)

“But these global pressures do not account for what’s been happening in the white-collar professions. The growing inequality at the top is even more dramatic than at the bottom, as the most highly compensated corporate managers, lawyers, physicians, and even preachers have pulled away from the pack.” (54)

“Winning a competition with a large number of contestants requires that almost everything go right. And that, in turn, means that even when luck counts for only a trivial part of overall performance, there’s rarely a winner who wasn’t also very lucky.” (63)

“If luck has only a very small effect on performance, why is it so hard to win a large contest unless you’re very lucky? Two factors are involved. One is that the inherent randomness of luck means that the most skilled contestant is no more likely to be lucky than anyone else. The second factor is that with a large number of contestants, there are bound to be many with close to the maximum skill level, and among those at least some will also happen to be very lucky. With very large contestant pools, then, there will almost always be someone who is almost as skillful as the most talented contestant, but is also significantly luckier. So even when luck counts for only a tiny fraction of total performance, the winner of a large contest will seldom be the most skillful contestant, but will usually be one of the luckiest.” (66)

“I emphasize that this isn’t the same as saying that most winners win only because they’re lucky. In highly competitive arenas, most would not have even been realistic contenders had they not been both extremely able and hardworking. It would be grossly unfair, the, to say that most winners didn’t deserve their rewards.” (68)

“Bryan Cranston said, “Luck is a component that a lot of people in the arts sometimes fail to recognize: that you can have talent, perseverance, patience, but without luck you will not have a successful career.” (68)

“People with more realistic beliefs about their talents and about luck’s importance may actually find it more difficult to muster the will to overcome the difficult obstacles that litter every path to success.” (70-71)

“Nondepressed students consistently overestimated the quality of their own performance in tasks at which they succeeded, and underestimated the importance of their own performance in tasks in which they performed poorly.” (73)

“A narrative that openly acknowledges the strong link between success and luck calls explicit attention to this uncertainty. It might thus discourage the very efforts that are so often critical for success.” (76)

“Parents who teach their children that luck doesn’t matter may for that very reason be more likely to raise successful children than parents who tell their children the truth.” (77)

“Pride in one’s achievements is often one of the most powerful motivations to expend the effort it takes to succeed.” (82)

“Liberals are more likely than conservatives to embrace the importance of luck in life.” (83)

“The effects of a decline in any one person’s after-tax income are dramatically different from those of an across-the-board decline. If you alone experience an income decline, you’re less able to buy what you want. But when everyone’s income declines simultaneously, relative purchasing power is unaffected. And it’s relative purchasing power that determines who gets things that are in short supply.” (92)

“Overlooking luck’s role makes those who’ve succeeded at the highest levels feel much more entitled to keep the lion’s share of the income they’ve earned.” (93)

“Of the one hundred largest US counties, those where income inequality grew most rapidly were also those that experienced the largest increases in three important symptoms of financial distress: divorce rates, long commutes, and bankruptcy filings.” (114)

“Because chance events figure prominently along virtually every career trajectory, people who claim complete responsibility for their own success are almost surely claiming more credit than they actually deserve, a move that’s unlikely to make them more attractive to others.” (132)

“In short, it may be in your interest to acknowledge luck’s role in your success if only because people will think better of you for having done so.” (141)

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