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“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.

Power of Positive Thinking“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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“Grain Brain” Quotes

I recently read “Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar – Your Brain’s Silent Killers” by David Perlmutter, MD with Kristin Loberg. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

Grain Brain“Beyond simply serving as a source of calories, protein, and fat, food actually regulates the expression of many of our genes.” (8)

“Modern food manufacturing, including genetic bioengineering, have allowed us to grow grains that contain up to forty times the gluten of grains cultivated just a few decades ago.” (63)

“If you’ve ever felt a rush of euphoric pleasure following the consumption of a bagel, scone, doughnut, or croissant, you’re not imagining it and you’re not alone.” (63)

“Obesity – and its metabolic consequences – has almost nothing to do with dietary fat consumption and everything to do with our addiction to carbs. The same is true about cholesterol: Eating high-cholesterol foods has no impact on our actual cholesterol levels, and the alleged correlation between higher cholesterol and higher cardiac risk is an absolute fallacy.” (72)

“Science is only recently discovering that both fat and cholesterol are severely deficient in diseased brains and that high total cholesterol levels in late life are associated with increased longevity.” (91)

Dr. Yeon-Kyun Shin says, “If you deprive cholesterol from the brain, then you directly affect the machinery that triggers the release of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters affect the data-processing and memory functions. In other words – how smart you are and how well you remember things.” (95)

“The more sugars we eat, the more we tell our bodies to transfer them to fat.” (108)

“Fat is an organ.” (119)

“The larger a person’s waist-to-hip ratio (i.e., the bigger the belly), the smaller the brain’s memory center, the hippocampus.” (120)

“For every excess pound put on the body, the brain gets a little smaller.” (121)

“The best diet for maintaining weight loss is a low carb, high-fat one.” (124)

“We can change the expression of more than 70 percent of the genes that have a direct bearing on our health and longevity.” (127)

“The science is stunning. Physical exercise is one of the most potent ways of changing your genes.” (132)

“Suicide attempts have long been shown to run higher in people who have low total cholesterol.” (163)

“If you’ve got low cholesterol, you’ve got a much higher risk of developing depression. And the lower you go, the closer you are to harboring thoughts of suicide.” (163)

“The nerve cells in your gut are not only regulating muscles, immune cells, and hormones, but also manufacturing an estimated 80 to 90 percent of your body’s serotonin. In fact, your intestinal brian makes more serotonin than the brain that rests in your skull.” (164)

“Supplemental zinc has been shown to enhance the effects of antidepressants in people with major depression.” (165)

“U.S. Army researcher Dr. F. Curtis Dohan was among the first scientists to notice a relationship between postwar Europe’s food scarcity (and, consequently, a lack of wheat in the diet) and considerably fewer hospitalizations for schizophrenia.” (167)

“Waist circumference is a better predictor of migraine activity than general obesity in both men and women up until age fifty-five.” (173)

“Don’t skip meals or keep erratic eating habits. As with sleep, your eating patterns control many hormonal processes that can affect your risk for a headache.” (176)

“Go gluten-, preservative-, additive-, and processed-free. The low-glycemic, low-carb, high-healthy-fat diet will go a long way to reducing your risk for headaches. Be especially careful about aged cheese, cured meats, and sources of monosodium glutamate (MSg, commonly found in Chinese food), as these ingredients may be responsible for triggering up to 30 percent of migraines.” (176)

“Get your probiotics through a supplement that offers a variety of strains (at least ten), including Lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacterium, and contains at least ten billion active bacteria per capsule.” (191)

“The simple act of moving your body will do more for your brain than any riddle, math equation, mystery book, or even thinking itself.” (194)

“The more refined and processed the carbohydrate, the more out of whack healthy levels of leptin and insulin become.” (213)

“Not a single drug or supplement on the planet can balance leptin levels. But better sleep, as well as better dietary choices, will do the trick.” (213)

“It’s imperative to lower carb intake to just 30 to 40 grams a day for four weeks. After that, you can increase your carb intake to 60 grams a day.” (230)

“Find your sweet spot, leaving approximately three hours between dinner and bedtime.” (235)

“Don’t eat erratically. Eat on a regular schedule. This will keep your appetite hormones in check. If you delay a meal too long, you will throw your hormones out of whack and trigger the nervous system, which can later impact your sleep.” (235)

“Nocturnal hypoglycemia (low nighttime blood glucose levels) can cause insomnia. If your blood sugar drops too low, it causes the release of hormones that stimulate the brain and tell you to eat. Try a bedtime snack to avoid this midnight disaster. Go for foods high in the amino acid tryptophan, which is a natural promoter of sleep. Foods high in tryptophan include turkey, cottage cheese, chicken, eggs and nuts (especially almonds).” (236)

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“Ego Is The Enemy” Quotes

Ego Is The EnemyI recently read “Ego Is The Enemy” by Ryan Holiday. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“Marina Abramovic says: If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.” (4)

“Talk depletes us. Talking and doing fight for the same resources. Research shows that while goal visualization is important, after a certain point our mind begins to confuse it with actual progress. The same goes for verbalization. Even talking aloud to ourselves while we work through difficult problems has been shown to significantly decrease insight and breakthroughs. After spending so much time thinking, explaining, and talking about a task, we start to feel that we’ve gotten closer to achieving it.” (27)

“Doing great work is a struggle. It’s draining, it’s demoralizing, it’s frightening – not always, but it can feel that way when we’re deep in the middle of it. We talk to fill the void and the uncertainty.” (27)

“The greatest work and art comes from wrestling with the void, facing it instead of scrambling to make it go away.” (28)

“The only relationship between work and chatter is that one kills the other.” (28)

“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.” (32)

“There’s a quip from the historian Will Durant, that a nation is born stoic and dies epicurean.” (32)

“The power of being a student is not just that it is an extended period of instruction, it also places the ego and ambition in someone else’s hands. There is a sort of ego ceiling imposed – one knows that he is not better than the “master” he apprentices under. Not even close. You defer to them, you subsume yourself. You cannot fake or bullshit them.” (38)

“The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better. Studious self-assessment is the antidote.” (39)

“Because we only seem to hear about the passion of successful people,w e forget that failures shared the same trait.” (47)

“Be an anteambulo. Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself.” (53)

“When you are just starting out, we can be sure of a few fundamental realities: 1) You’re not nearly as good or as important as you think you are; 2) You have an attitude that needs to be readjusted; 3) Most of what you think you know or most of what you learned in books or in school is out of date or wrong.” (53)

“Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room – until you change that with results.” (56)

“Be lesser, do more. Imagine if for every person you met, you thought of some way to help them, something you could do fro them? And you looked at it in a way that entirely benefited them and not you.” (46)

“Most people’s egos prevent them from appreciating: the person who clears the path ultimately controls its direction.” (58)

“It is a timeless fact of life that the up-and-coming must endure the abuses of the entrenched.” (64)

“It’s a sad fact of life that new talents are regularly missed, and even when recognized, often unappreciated. The reasons always vary, but it’s a part of the journey.” (64)

“You’re not able to change the system until after you’ve made it. In the meantime, you’ll have to find some way to make it suit your purposes – even if those purposes are just extra time to develop properly, to learn from others on their dime, to build your base and establish yourself.” (64)

“Genghis Khan warned, “If you can’t swallow your pride, you can’t lead.” (77)

“The question to ask, when you feel pride, then, is this: What am I missing right now that a more humble person might see? What am I avoiding, or running from, with my bluster, franticness, and embellishments?” (77)

“Fac, si facis. (Do it if you’re going to do it.)” (82)

“We want so desperately to believe that those who have great empires set out to build one. Why? So we can indulge in the pleasurable planning of ours.” (109)

“Once you win, everyone is gunning for you. It’s during your moment at the top that you can afford ego the least – because the stakes are so much higher, the margins for error are so much smaller. If anything, your ability to listen, to hear feedback, to improve and grow matter more now than ever before.” (110)

“Instead of pretending that we are living some great story, we must remain focused on the execution – and on executing with excellence. We must shun the false crown and continue working on what got us here. Because that’s the only thing that will keep us here.” (113)

“Ego needs honors in order to be validated. Confidence, on the other hand, is able to wait and focus on the task at hand regardless of external recognition.” (134)

“We never earn the right to be greedy or to pursue our interests at the expense of everyone else. To think otherwise is not only egotistical, it’s counterproductive.” (135)

“The only way out is through.” (168)

“This is what we’re aspiring to – much more than mere success. What matters is that we can respond to what life throws at us. And how we make it through.” (169)

“”Ambition,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, “means tying your well-being to what other people say or do… Sanity means tying it to your own actions.” Do your work. Do it well. Then “let go and let God.” That’s all there needs to be.” (180)

“The world is, after all, indifferent to what we humans “want.” If we persist in wanting, in needing, we are simply setting ourselves up for resentment or worse. Doing the work is enough.” (181)

“The problem is that when we get our identity tied up in our work, we worry that any kind of failure will then say something bad about us as a person.” (189)

“Your potential, the absolute best you’re capable of – that’s the metric to measure yourself against. Your standards are. Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. People can be assholes and win. Anyone can win. But not everyone is the best possible version of themselves.” (197)

“A person who judges himself based on his own standard doesn’t crave the spotlight the same way as someone who lets applause dictate success.” (199)

“A person who can think long term doesn’t pity herself during short-term setbacks.” (199)

“This obsession with the past, with something that someone did or how things should have been, as mucha s it hurts, is ego embodied.” (206)

“Perfecting the personal regularly leads to success as a professional, but rarely the other way around.” (216)

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“Give and Take” Quotes

Give and Take coverI recently read “Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach To Success” by Adam Grant. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“If you insist on quid pro quo every time you help others, you will have a much narrower network.” (45)

“Rifkin is governed by a simple rule: the five-minute favor. “You should be willing to do something that will take you five minutes or less for anybody.” (55)

“Overall, the surgeons didn’t get better with practice. They only got better at the specific hospital where they practiced.” (70)

“A defining feature of how givers collaborate: they take on the tasks that are in the group’s best interest, not necessarily their own personal interests.” (74)

“Eugene Kim and Theresa Glomb found that highly talented people tend to make others jealous, placing themselves at risk of being disliked, resented, ostracized, and undermined. But if these talents people are also givers, they no longer have a target on their backs. Instead, givers are appreciated for their contributions to the group.” (75)

“Carolyn Omine adds, ‘Compared to other writers’ room I’ve been in, I would say The Simpsons tends to look longer for jokes. I think it’s because we have writers, like George, who will say, ‘No, that’s not quite right,’ even if it’s late, even if we’re all tired. I think that’s an important quality. We need those people, like George, who aren’t afraid to say, “no, this isn’t good enough. We can do better.’” (76)

“‘One of the best things about developing that credibility was if I wanted to try something that was fairly strange, people would be willing to at least give it a shot at the table read,’ Meyer reflects. ‘They ended up not rewriting my stuff as much as they had early on, because they know I had a decent track record. I think people saw that my heart was in the right place – my intentions were good. That goes a long way.’” (76)

“This is a perspective gap: when we’re not experiencing a psychologically or physically intense state, we dramatically underestimate how much it will affect us.” (87)

“The same patterns emerged with friends giving and receiving wedding gifts and birthday gifts. The senders preferred to give unique gifts, but the recipients actually preferred the gifts they solicited on their registries and wish lists.” (89)

“‘There are only a few hundred people at any one time writing television comedy for a living,’ Meyer says. ‘It’s a good idea not to alienate these guys, and most of the jobs you get are more or less through word of mouth, or a recommendation. It’s really important to have a good reputation. I quickly learned to see other comedy writers as allies.’” (91)

“Success doesn’t measure a human being, effort does.” (102)

“Of course, natural talent also matters, but once you have a pool of candidates above the threshold of necessary potential, grit is a major factor that predicts how close they get to achieving their potential.” (106)

“When Dave stammered and tripped over a couple of arguments, something strange happened. The jurors liked him.” (129)

“Research suggests that there are two fundamental paths to influence: dominance and prestige.” (130)

“But there’s a twist: expressing vulnerability is only effective if the audience receives other signals establishing the speaker’s competence.” (133)

“Psychologists call this the pratfall effect. Spilling a cup of coffee hurt the image of the average candidate: it was just another reason for the audience to dislike him. But the same blunder helped the expert appear human and approachable – instead of superior and distant.” (134)

“By asking people questions about their plans and intentions, we increase the likelihood that they actually act on these plans and intentions.” (142)

“New research shows that advice seeking is a surprisingly effective strategy for exercising influence when we lack authority.” (150)

“Seeking advice is among the most effective ways to influence peers, superiors, and subordinates.” (150)

“Research shows that people who regularly seek advice and help from knowledgeable colleagues are actually rated more favorably by supervisors than those who never seek advice and help.” (151)

“When we ask for advice, in order to give us a recommendation, advisers have to look at the problem or dilemma from our point of view.” (151)

“Benjamin Franklin ‘had a fundamental rule for winning friends,’ Isaacson writers: appeal to ‘their pride and vanity by constantly seeking their opinion and advice, and they will admire you for your judgment and wisdom.’” (153)

“The change of context brought renewed energy.” (169)

“Research shows that if people start volunteering two hours a week, their happiness, satisfaction, and self-esteem go up a year later.” (174)

“Giving has an energizing effect only if it’s an enjoyable, meaningful choice rather than undertake out of duty and obligation.” (175)

“Three decades of research show that receiving support from colleagues is a robust antidote to burnout.” (177)

“If you spend the money on yourself, your happiness doesn’t change. But if you spend the money on others, you actually report becoming significantly happier.” (183)

“It’s wise to start out as a giver, since research shows that trust is hard to build but easy to destroy. But once a counterpart is clearly acting like a taker, it makes sense for givers to flex their reciprocity styles and shift to a matching strategy.” (198)

“Givers, particularly agreeable ones, often overestimate the degree to which assertiveness might be off-putting to others.” (208)

“When we look at a rivas as a fellow soccer fan, rather than as an enemy, we can identify with him. Oftentimes, we fail to identify with people because we’re thinking about ourselves – or them – in terms that are too specific and narrow. If we look more broadly at commonalities between us, it becomes much easier to see giving as otherish.” (226)

“Psychologists have found that on average, people whose names start with A and B get better grades and are accepted to higher-ranked law schools than people whose names start with C and D – and that professional baseball players whose names start with K, the symbol for strikeouts, strikeout 9 percent more often than their peers.” (231)

“It was not just any commonality that drove people to act like givers. IT was an uncommon commonality.” (232)

“A popular way to achieve optimal distinctiveness is to join a unique group. Being part of a group with shared interests, identities, goals, values, skills, characteristics, or experiences gives us a sense of connection and belonging. At the same time, being part of a group that is clearly distinct from other groups gives us a sense of uniqueness. Studies show that people identify more strongly with individuals and groups that share unique similarities. The more rare a group, value, interest, skill, or experience is, the more likely it is to facilitate a bond. And research indicates that people are happier in groups that provide optimal distinctiveness, giving a sense of both inclusion and uniqueness. These are the groups in which we take the most pride, and feel the most cohesive and valued.” (233)

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“Originals” Quotes

Originals CoverI recently read “Originals: How Nonconformists Move The World” by Adam Grant. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like them, buy the book here.

“After finding that disadvantaged groups consistently support the status quo more than advantaged groups, Jost and his colleagues concluded: “People who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it.”” (6)

“Justifying the default system serves a soothing function. It’s an emotional painkiller: If the world is supposed to be this way, we don’t need to be dissatisfied with it.” (7)

“The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists.” (7)

“Although child prodigies are often rich in both talent and ambition, what holds them back from moving the world forward is that they don’t learn to be original. As they perform in Carnegie Hall, win the science Olympics, and become chess champions, something tragic happens: Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new.” (9)

“Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit. If you’re risk averse and have some doubts about the feasibility of your ideas, it’s likely that your business will be built to last. If you’re a freewheeling gambler, your startup is far more fragile.” (17)

“Polaroid founder Edwin Land remarked, “No person could possibly be original in one area unless he were possessed of the emotional and social stability that comes from fixed attitudes in all areas other than the one in which he is being original.”” (19)

“Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.” (19)

“The biggest barrier to originality is not idea generation – it’s idea selection.” (31)

“Simonton finds that on average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which game them more variation and a higher chance of originality.” (35)

“If you want to be original, “the most important possible thing you could do,” says Ira Glass, the producer of This American Life and the podcast Serial, “is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.” (37)

“Across fields, Simonton reports that the most prolific people nto only have the highest originality; they also generate their most original output during the periods in which they produce the largest volume.” (37)

“Many people fail to achieve originality because they generate a few ideas and then obsess about refining them to perfection.” (37)

“When artists assessed one another’s performances, they were about twice as accurate as managers and test audiences in predicting how often the videos would be shared.” (42)

“Our intuitions are only accurate in domains where we have a lot of experience.” (51)

“Physicists, accountants, insurance analysts, and chess masters – they all work in fields where cause-and-effect relationships are fairly consistent. But admissions officers, court judges, intelligence analysts, psychiatrists, and stock brokers didn’t benefit much from experience. In a rapidly changing world, the lessons of experience can easily point us in the wrong direction. And because the pace of change is accelerating, our environments are becoming ever more unpredictable.” (53)

“The more successful people have been in the past, the worse they perform when they enter a new environment. They become overconfident, and they’re less likely to seek critical feedback even though the context is radically different.” (54)

“When people sought to exert influence but lacked respect, others perceived them as difficult, coercive, and self-serving. Since they haven’t earned our admiration, we don’t feel they have the right to tell us what to do, and we push back.” (65)

“Francis Ford Coppola observed, “the way to come to power is not always to merely challenge the Establishment, but first make a place in it and then challenge and double-cross the Establishment.”” (66)

“Most of us assume that to be persuasive, we ought to emphasize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. That kind of powerful communication makes sense if the audience is supportive. But when you’re pitching a novel idea or speaking up with a suggestion for change, your audience is likely to be skeptical. Investors are looking to poke holes in your arguments; managers are hunting for reasons why your suggestion won’t work. Under those circumstances, for at least for reasons, it’s actually more effective to adopt Griscom’s form of powerless communication by accentuating the flaws in your idea.” (69)

“The first advantage is that leading with weaknesses disarms the audience.” (69)

“If you’re perched at the top, you’re expected to be different and therefore have the license to deviate. Likewise, if you’re still at the bottom of a status hierarchy, you have little to lose and everything to gain by being original. But the middle segment of that hierarchy – where the majority of people in an organization are found – is dominated by insecurity.” (82)

“In the long run, research shows that the mistakes we regret are not errors of commission, but errors of omission. If we could do things over, most of us would censor ourselves less and express our ideas more.” (91)

“If you’re feeling pressured to start working on a creative task when you’re wide awake, it might be worth delaying it until you’re a little sleepier.” (97)

“People have a better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. Once a task is finished, we stop thinking about it. But when it is interrupted and left undone, it stays active in our minds.” (99)

“In the majority of circumstances, your odds of success aren’t higher if you go first. And when the market is uncertain, unknown, or underdeveloped, being a pioneer has pronounced disadvantages.” (108)

“The originals who start a movement will often be its most radical members, whose ideas and ideals will prove too hot for those who follow their lead.” (117)

“Simon Sinek argues that if we want to inspire people, we should start with why. If we communicate the vision behind our ideas, the purpose guiding our products, people will flock to us. This is excellent advice – unless you’re doing something original that challenges the status quo.” (124)

“For insiders, the key representative is the person who is most central and connected in the group… But for outsiders, the person who represents the group is the one with the most extreme views.” (128)

“The most promising ideas begin from novelty and then add familiarity.” (136)

“Instead of assuming that others share our principles, or trying to convince them to adopt ours, we ought to present our values as a means of pursuing theirs. It’s hard to change other people’s ideals. It’s much easier to link our agendas to familiar values that people already hold.” (140)

“Rob Minkoff explains: If it’s not original enough, it’s boring or trite. If it’s too original, it may be hard for the audience to understand. The goal is to push the envelope, not tear the envelope.” (141)

“Predicting personality is more challenging with only children than with children who have siblings. Like firstborns, only children grow up in a world of adults and identify with parents. Like lastborns, they are protected fiercely, which leaves them “free to become radicals themselves.”” (162)

“Reasoning communicates a message of respect… it implies that had children but known better or understood more, they would not have acted in an inappropriate way. It is a mark of esteem for the listener; an indication of faith in his or her ability to comprehend, develop, and improve.” (164)

“Parents of highly creative children had an average of less than one rule and tended to “place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules.”” (164)

“When we praise children for their intelligence, they develop a fixed view of ability, which leads them to give up in the face of failure. Instead of telling them how smart they are, it’s wise to praise their effort, which encourages them to see their abilities as malleable and persist to overcome obstacles.” (169)

“The most inspiring way to convey a vision is to outsource it to the people who are actually affected by it.” (221)

“People are inspired to achieve the highest performance when leaders describe a vision and then invite a customer to bring it to life with a personal story. The leader’s message provides an overarching vision to start the car, and the user’s story offers an emotional appeal that steps on the accelerator.” (222)

“Merely knowing that you’re not the only resistor makes it substantially easier to reject the crowd. Emotional strength can be found even in small numbers.” (225)

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