Right Attitudes

Inspirational Quotations #732

April 15, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

Life is a great bundle of little things.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
—John F. Kennedy

An aspiration is a joy forever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

The morning, pouring everywhere, its golden glory on the air.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.
—William Ralph Inge

I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.
—Zig Ziglar

Don’t be afraid to stumble. Any inventor will tell you that you don’t follow a plan far before you strike a snag. If, out of 100 ideas you get one that works, it’s enough.
—Charles F. Kettering

Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
—Theodore Roosevelt

People have many different kinds of pleasure. The real one is that for which they will forsake the others.
—Marcel Proust

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.
—Winston Churchill

I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.
—Lucille Ball

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.
—Andy Warhol

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.
—Igor Stravinsky

It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
—Ronald Reagan

Who put up that cage? Who hung it up with bars, doors? Why do those on the inside want to get out? Why do those outside want to get in? What is this crying inside and out all the time? What is this endless, useless beating of baffled wings at these bars, doors, this cage?
—Carl Sandburg

Youth is wasted on the young.
—George Bernard Shaw

In reality, we are still children. We want to find a playmate for our thoughts and feelings.
—Wilhelm Stekel

Shrewd Leaders Sometimes Take Liberties with the Truth to Reach Righteous Goals

April 12, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Shrewd Leaders Must Sometimes Take Liberties with the Truth to Reach Righteous Goals Duplicity must be decried when used to justify the attainment and exercise of power. However, sometimes, even principled leaders must put on an act to realize noble ends—infuse optimism to surmount hopelessness, win followers’ devotion to audacious new ideas, for example.

In the Zen parable that follows, a warrior motivates his followers in the face of desperate odds. He persuades his outnumbered army by flipping an unfair coin and proclaiming that they are fated to win the battle.

A great Japanese warrior named Nobunaga decided to attack the enemy although he had only one-tenth the number of men the opposition commanded. He knew that he would win, but his soldiers were in doubt.

On the way he stopped at a Shinto shrine and told his men: “After I visit the shrine I will toss a coin. If heads comes, we will win; if tails, we will lose. Destiny holds us in her hand.”

Nobunaga entered the shrine and offered a silent prayer. He came forth and tossed a coin. Heads appeared. His soldiers were so eager to fight that they won their battle easily.

“No one can change the hand of destiny,” his attendant told him after the battle.

“Indeed not,” said Nobunaga, showing a coin which had been doubled, with heads facing either way.

Idea for Impact: Moral Leadership Relates to the Integrity of Leaders and Their Intentions

A wise leader must be open to bringing deception into play to smooth the way to sound decisions and noble results.

As long as leaders use these methods to respectable purposes, and until people wise up to their methods, certain ends can justify certain means.

Postscript: The quoted Zen parable is sourced from the celebrated compilation Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, Shambhala Edition (1961) by Paul Reps. This book traces its roots to the thirteenth-century Japanese anthology of Buddhist parables Shasekishū (Sand and Pebbles) compiled by the Kamakura-era monk Mujū.

Is IBM Becoming Extinct?

April 9, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Change Forces Leaders to See Business Models Afresh and Imagine New Paradigms

Disruption of the ice cutting and trade industry The American venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki often tells the following story about the need for entrepreneurs to adapt themselves to emerging market settings and stay relevant.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, a sizeable ice cutting and trade industry flourished in the US Northeast. Harvesters sawed off blocks of ice from frozen lakes and rivers, and transported and sold them for industrial and commercial consumption around the world. The biggest consignment of natural ice weighed some 200 tons; half of it thawed en route to India, but the remaining 100 tons of ice returned a profit.

In due course, the invention of icemaking machines caused the downfall of the natural ice harvesting industry. Anybody needing ice could purchase artificial ice during any season from ice factories. As a sign of the times, the trade publication Ice Trade Journal changed its name to Refrigerating World.

Subsequently, the emerging popularity of commercial and domestic refrigeration units put the ice factories out of business. Residences, stores, and businesses could make their own ice conveniently and maintain cold storage.

The Best Leaders Anticipate Change and Nurture Their Own Innovations

Disruption of the industrial ice industry and commercial refrigeration During the first of the aforementioned disruptions, according to Kawasaki, the ice harvesters did not recognize the benefits of industrial ice-making and did not adapt to the revolution in their industry. Instead, they chose to defend their existing trade—they continued to innovate sawing equipment, invest in efficient storage, and improve their rail- and ship-transportation systems.

Correspondingly, the industrial icemakers of the following generation never embraced or adapted to the emerging advent of consumer refrigeration.

The take away lesson is that many successful companies are so set in their ways that they don’t pivot themselves when they face disruption in their industries.

Successful Companies Can Become Victims of Their Own Success

Kawasaki’s anecdote illustrates how disruption drives many companies into stagnation. Every so often, entire industries vanish into oblivion.

Major economic disruptions can compel companies to question what they stand for. Sadly, many companies choose to defend their existing domains instead of raising their technological edge and reinventing their products, services, and brands.

When the fundamentals of a time-honored business drastically change, the most successful companies are often the slowest to recognize the shifts and pivot. Well-established in the comfort of routine and stability, they entrench deeper into their tried-and-true formulae. As described in Harvard strategy professor Clayton Christenson‘s well-known thesis The Innovator’s Dilemma, the strategic inertia often gets companies with at-risk, but established business models into a state of denial. Consequently, they refute the challenges posed by fiery startups.

Can IBM Beat the Odds?

Is IBM Becoming Extinct? IBM has fought off a technological and economic disruption once before. During the 1980s, IBM fell from glory, but got reborn as a vibrant corporation after Lou Gerstner became CEO in 1993. He redefined IBM’s businesses, fortified its value proposition, and changed the mindset of the company, its employees, and its customers. As Gerstner detailed in his bestselling biography about IBM’s reinvention, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround (2002,) this was an astonishing achievement given how deeply-rooted IBM was in its existing, but increasingly irrelevant business model.

At present, IBM is struggling in the midst of yet another digital revolution—one that is exemplified by the commoditization of hardware and the enterprise-adoption of cloud computing. Shackled with legacy business models of older, less-differentiated products and services, IBM has struggled to catch-up with cloud platforms offered by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

Instead of reckoning honestly with the growing shift to cloud-based services, IBM has concentrated for far too long on its Wall Street-pleasing financial shenanigans (buying back shares to prop up earnings-per-share, cutting costs, firing employees, reducing tax rates, selling less-profitable operations, and the rest.)

The jury is still out on the long-term success of IBM’s much-ballyhooed Watson platform and its cloud computing initiatives. What makes this cycle of disruption worse is that IBM faces aggressive competitors who are pushing profit margins toward zero in a bid to dislodge IBM’s historical footing in the enterprise IT landscape and to establish dominance.

Inspirational Quotations #731

April 8, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
—Tennessee Williams

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
—Henri Nouwen

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.
—John W. Gardner

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: That?s the essence of inhumanity.
—George Bernard Shaw

Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.
—William Shakespeare

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt

No man is happy who does not think himself so.
—Publilius Syrus

The birds are moulting. If man could only moult also?his mind once a year it’s errors, his heart once a year it’s useless passions.
—James Lane Allen

A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
—Oliver Goldsmith

A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

How Mindfulness Can Make You Better at Your Job—Book Summary of “Mindful Work” by David Gelles

April 4, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Mindfulness Simply Means Being Aware and Being Present

Most religions and spiritual practices encourage some sort of meditation and mindfulness. However, the specific practice of bringing your attention and your focus to the present moment, and observing and accepting the experience as is, is most commonly associated with the Eastern meditative traditions.

Mindfulness is an element of the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path to nirvana (enlightenment.) The Buddha taught that a mistaken perception of reality inevitably leads to suffering. Mindfulness is the primary means of bridging that gap between how things seem to be and how they really are.

Attending to What Happens to Our Minds, Hearts, Attitudes, and Actions

In its secular form, mindfulness is but a practice of consciousness. It is heedfulness or awareness of your subjective thoughts, behaviors, and experiences—without evaluating or judging them.

Mindfulness can help you, through direct experience, become more comfortable with your life and to be better able to cope with the problems and issues in your daily life.

The heightened mental receptivity, together with an increased sensitivity to the environment, better openness to new information, and a sharper decision-making are understood to produce a great number of physiological and psychological benefits.

Mindfulness is the Best Antidote to Anxiety

In a world that barrages us with information and demands us to be incessantly active and reactive, mindlessness is being embraced increasingly in the mainstream culture. As a supplement to yoga, and without any specific religious association, mindfulness is today practiced as a way to prevent being swept away in an avalanche of thought, activity, and emotion.

David Gelles’s Mindful Work: How Meditation Is Changing Business from the Inside Out provides a remarkable account of the ever-increasing adoption of meditation-based mindfulness. Prominent American corporations such as Google, General Mills, Aetna, and Ford have built mindfulness-themed employee wellness initiatives to foster a happier, more productive workplace.

Gelles brings a business journalist’s objectivity to draw together his experience of practicing meditation for 15 years. He also reviews scientific research that has evidenced how people who have a mindfulness routine are less distractible and better at concentrating, even when multi-tasking.

Scientific research is making the benefits clear. Studies show that mindfulness strengthens our immune systems, bolsters our concentrative powers, and rewires our brains. Just as lifting weights at the gym makes our muscles stronger, so too does practicing mindfulness make our minds stronger. And the most tried-and-true method of cultivating mindfulness is through meditation.

Gelles discusses the teachings of many key influencers in the development of the mindfulness movement. The rising popularity of meditative mindfulness in the West has its genesis in a retreat organized in the ’70s by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk and teacher. One of his attendees, the University of Massachusetts psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, integrated Hanh’s teachings with yoga and medical science, and created the popular eight-week “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction” course. Over the decades, other psychologists developed mindfulness-based interventions that allow patients to observe their cognitive and behavioral processes.

Gelles summarizes much of the recent research that has confirmed the centuries-old Eastern wisdom about mindfulness practices. Developments in contemplative neuroscience have corroborated the effects that meditative mindfulness has on supporting the body’s immune system and counteracting the symptoms of burnout.

Indeed, mindfulness seems to change the brain in some specific ways. Broadly speaking, mindfulness increases activity in parts of the prefrontal cortex, an evolutionarily recent region of the brain that is important for many of the things that make us human. This region is the seat of much of our higher-order thinking-our judgment, decision making, planning, and discernment. The prefrontal cortex is also an area that seems to be more active when we are engaged in pro-social behavior—things like compassion, empathy, and kindness.

Some studies have shown that folks who practice meditation have a less perturbed amygdala. That means that the brain is less vulnerable to interpreting many flight-or-fight stimuli as threats and triggering anger, stress, or a defense reaction.

Mindfulness is the Best Antidote to Anxiety

Meditative Mindfulness in the Emerging Context of Consumer Culture

Gelles warns that capitalism and commercialization could, due to many increasingly-visible entrepreneurial teachers, complicate something as seemingly simple as observing one’s breath and paying attention.

I’m sympathetic to the skeptics, who worry that a noble practice is being quickly corrupted by modern marketing. But having witnessed mindfulness in action for fifteen years, it is clear to me that rarely, if ever, does exposure to meditation make someone a worse person. On balance, the folks who become more mindful tend to be happier, healthier, and kinder. Nevertheless, it is worth addressing the various critiques of mainstream mindfulness, if only to put them to rest.

…

Even today, some of the most popular gurus in America have demonstrated a penchant for bling that strikes many as being out of touch with their mantra of inner peace. Bikram Choudhury, the litigious yoga teacher, cuts the figure of an oligarch, driving around Beverly Hills in a Rolls-Royce and sporting a gold-encrusted Rolex. A Thai monk with a taste for Louis Vuitton luggage and private jets had his assets frozen by authorities in 2013.

A Few Minutes a Day is All You Need to Reap the Benefits of Mindfulness

Recommendation: Read David Gelles’s Mindful Work. This helpful tome offers a succinct rundown of the benefits of mindfulness. In an era where our culture is increasingly questioning the frenzy of activity and reactivity that has entrenched the current way of life, mindfulness will continue to draw many mainstream practitioners for its ability to promote stress-reduction and produce improvements in one’s overall emotional state and outlook on life.

Indeed, mindfulness is about much more than simply observing sensations as they occur. It is about what happens to our minds, hearts, and actions when we deliberately continue these practices for weeks, months, and years. Mindfulness is a practice that allows us to achieve more sustainable happiness and to grow more compassionate. And over time, mindfulness requires one to confront thorny concepts like impermanence and compassion.

Why a Friend Can’t Keep a Secret

April 2, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

A caring, faithful relationship with a family member or a friend is a sacrosanct space where you can shed your guard, reveal your secrets, and disclose your worries. Such relationships are life’s principal social support systems.

Your ability to form close relationships with others hinges on the trust you feel with your nearest and dearest.

Once You Share Something Confidential, You Lose Control of it

Sharing your secrets with others and keeping others’ secrets are essential to establishing and nurturing bonds between people.

Secrets are kept or revealed for a variety of complex reasons—utter carelessness, actual malice, self-serving manipulation, or altruistic protection of others.

Forgetfulness and negligence often initiate letting a secret slip; some people may not understand the potential consequences of not keeping somebody’s secret to themselves.
As the World War II idiom cautions, loose lips sink ships. Some blabbermouths just can’t be the soul of discretion—they have no filters and don’t concern themselves with betraying others’ trust.
Some folks justify spreading others’ secrets by convincing themselves that the secret is common knowledge—if a source shared a secret with them, the source may have shared it with others too.
Some nefarious people use secrets they’re supposed to keep as currency to curry favor with someone else. An egregious recent example is that of McKinsey’s Managing Director Rajat Gupta revealing confidential information about Goldman Sachs, on whose board of directors he sat, to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.
Some people may assume an altruistic—or self-righteous—mind-set and reveal a secret assuming that divulging the secret could be more beneficial to those concerned than keeping the secret.
Some people reveal secrets because they can’t bear the mental distress of keeping the secret. Often, the bigger the secret, the harder it is to keep it.

If you’ve been told a secret or have some information in hand that may put somebody in immediate emotional or physical risk, be careful in how you act. Telling secrets in the wrong way, to the wrong people, or at the wrong time can be surprisingly destructive. If required, seek help from a relationship counselor.

If a friend shared something about you that you told them in private, try to forgive his/her lack of discretion. Hold back your trust until you can feel comfortable trusting them again.

Inspirational Quotations #730

April 1, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
—G. K. Chesterton

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.
—Martin Seligman

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.
—Shunryu Suzuki

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
—William Shakespeare

Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.
—William Shakespeare

A wise man who is grateful, faithfully keeps good company and duly gives a helping hand to those who are in trouble is called a virtuous person.
—Buddhist Teaching

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel

Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.
—Robert Anton Wilson

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
—Joseph Campbell

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth ? and truth rewarded me.
—Simone de Beauvoir

When confronted with two courses of action I jot down on a piece of paper all the arguments in favor of each one, then on the opposite side I write the arguments against each one. Then by weighing the arguments pro and con and cancelling them out, one against the other, I take the course indicated by what remains.
—Benjamin Franklin

As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.
—Albert Schweitzer

Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy grow faithless to each other.
—Samuel Johnson

Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit; to become delightful, happiness must be tainted with poison.
—Georges Bataille

In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.
—Malcolm X

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo

Admit When You Don’t Have All the Answers

March 27, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Admit When You Don't Have All the Answers As a leader or as a salesperson, your employees or customers expect you to have the answers. However, there’ll times when you may not know the answer to difficult questions right away. To avoid losing credibility and causing others to question your knowledge, it’s important to know how to handle the situation properly.

Folks Don’t Want to Confess to Not Knowing Enough

Having quick, confident answers is often seen as a mark of proficiency and leadership. For that reason, you may be conditioned to believe that “not knowing” makes you look exposed. You may assume that any gaps in knowledge should be veiled at all costs.

Rather than admitting that you don’t have an answer to a tough question, you may tend to make something up on the fly, fast-talk, or stumble your way with a dubious response. Rookie salespeople are particularly prone to this—they tend to give answers they believe their prospective customers want to hear.

Consequently, in trying to look strong, you’ll end up looking weak.

The Power of Saying “I Don’t Know”

The ability to recognize one’s limitations is an underappreciated intellectual skill. A humble individual is all too aware of the confines of his/her corpus of knowledge.

Intellectual growth can come about only when the humble person can admit to not knowing enough and opening up to the possibilities of learning.

In an interview at the Wharton school, Carol Bartz (the no-nonsense, swearword-spewing former executive at Yahoo, Autodesk, and Sun Microsystems) commented about this false bravado and misplaced poise:

The phrase, “I don’t know” is in fact a strength. I have a [nonsense] detector that is really good, really good. And I love playing with people who rubbish me. I would much prefer if someone told me, “Not only do I not know the answer, but I wouldn’t even know how to get it. Could we talk about how, and I can get back to you?” That is so, so powerful. I don’t care how old or seasoned or how high you are in an organization. Saying “I don’t know” can give you the vulnerability you need to lead better.

Idea for Impact: Don’t Be Afraid to Admit What You Don’t Know

Great leaders know when to admit “I don’t know” and how to follow up appropriately. When you’re tempted to misrepresent your understanding, try to declare,

“I don’t know the answer at this time, but I will get back to you.”
“Good point. I don’t know, but I’m interested in what you think.”
“I don’t know, but let’s consult someone who knows more about this.”
“I don’t know, but I can do more research and incorporate those risk factors in our contingency plans.”

To be appreciated as a reliable, confident, and ethical person, be willing to admit that you don’t have all the answers. This act of humility and the readiness to seek the help of others can inspire greater trust within your team and encourage others to follow suit.

Be honest and direct when dealing with people, and they’ll respect you even if you aren’t able to answer all their questions.

Inspirational Quotations #729

March 25, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

The child is not to be educated for the present, but for the remote future, and often is opposition to the immediate future.
—Jean Paul

Kind words are a creative force, a power that concurs in the building up of all that is good, and energy that showers blessings upon the world.
—Lawrence G. Lovasik

The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die.
—Will Rogers

Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after is has happened; but only the wise man knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting and memorable.
—Winston Churchill

Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and will make not only for our own happiness but that of the world at large.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
—Thomas Edison

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.
—Oscar Wilde

There is often more spiritual force in a proverb than in whole philosophical systems.
—Thomas Carlyle

Every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it.
—Jeffrey Immelt

Those who are brutally honest are seldom so with themselves.
—Mignon McLaughlin

The person who offends writes as if it was written on sand, and the person who is offended reads it as if it were written on marble.
—Italian Proverb

Unless each day can be looked back upon by an individual as one in which he has had some fun, some joy, some real satisfaction, that day is a loss.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

It’s true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.
—John C. Maxwell

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
—W. Somerset Maugham

Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope.
—Arnold Glasow

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
—Aristotle

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.
—Swami Sivananda

Inspirational Quotations #728

March 18, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
—Albert Einstein

He who would be well taken care of must take care of himself.
—William Graham Sumner

Nothing truly can be termed my own, but what I make my own by using well; those deeds of charity which we have done, shall stay forever with us; and that wealth which we have so bestowed, we only keep; the other is not ours.
—Conyers Middleton

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.
—Samuel Johnson

Dislodging a green nut from it’s shell is almost impossible, but let it dry and the lightest tap will do it.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Kind words may be short… but their echoes are endless.
—Mother Teresa

He that opposes his own judgment against the consent of the times ought to be backed with unanswerable truths; and he that has truth on his side is a fool, as well as a coward, if he is afraid to own it because of other men’s opinions.
—Daniel Defoe

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.
—Miguel de Unamuno

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He that is overcautious will accomplish but very little.
—Friedrich Schiller

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.
—Thich Nhat Hanh

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
—G. K. Chesterton

The most common commodity in this country is unrealized potential.
—Calvin Coolidge

Wondering what to read next?

Idea for Impact: Moral Leadership Relates to the Integrity of Leaders and Their Intentions

Wondering what to read next?

Change Forces Leaders to See Business Models Afresh and Imagine New Paradigms

The Best Leaders Anticipate Change and Nurture Their Own Innovations

Successful Companies Can Become Victims of Their Own Success

Can IBM Beat the Odds?

Wondering what to read next?

Mindfulness Simply Means Being Aware and Being Present

Attending to What Happens to Our Minds, Hearts, Attitudes, and Actions

Mindfulness is the Best Antidote to Anxiety

Meditative Mindfulness in the Emerging Context of Consumer Culture

A Few Minutes a Day is All You Need to Reap the Benefits of Mindfulness

Wondering what to read next?

Once You Share Something Confidential, You Lose Control of it

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Folks Don’t Want to Confess to Not Knowing Enough

The Power of Saying “I Don’t Know”

Idea for Impact: Don’t Be Afraid to Admit What You Don’t Know

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?