Right Attitudes

How to Make Others Feel They Owe You One: Reciprocity and Social Influence

September 18, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Reciprocity, as described below, is a manipulative technique. My aim for this article is twofold: firstly, it sensitizes you to one of the many things people can do to get you to do their bidding. Secondly, reciprocity is a handy technique for those circumstances where certain ends can justify certain means.

Reciprocity is treating other people as they treat you, or for the purpose of this article, as you wish to be treated—specifically with the expectation that they will reciprocate your favor in the future.

In other words, reciprocity is a sneaky trick that permits deliberate interpersonal influence. Do something for other people and they will be willing to do something for you, partly because they’ll be uncomfortable feeling indebted to you.

The concept of reciprocity is ingrained in human nature. As part of our upbringing, we are taught to give something back to people who give us something. Reciprocity and cooperation are the underpinnings of a civilized society—they allow us to help people who need it and to hope that they will help us when we need it. Research suggests that the desire to repay goodwill is hard-wired in the human brain.

Jack Schafer’s The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over (2015) offers a clever technique to put reciprocity into action:

The next time someone thanks you for something, don’t say, “You’re welcome.” Instead, say, “I know you’d do the same thing for me.” This response invokes reciprocity. The other person is now predisposed to help you when you ask them for a favor.

The effects of goodwill are short-lived. A long-forgotten reputation for helpfulness gets you nothing. You have to renew your reputation by helping others regularly.

To learn more about reciprocity, read social psychologist Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984.) He identified reciprocity as one of six principles that can help get others’ compliance to your requests.

Inspirational Quotations #754

September 16, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

Happiness is beneficial for the body but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation … Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person—it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen … to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian Poet)

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crises, maintain their neutrality.
—Dante Alighieri (Italian Political leader)

The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
—Joseph Stalin (Soviet Leader)

Successful investing is about having people agree with you … later.
—James Grant (American Writer, Publisher)

We can tell how well we’ve lived by how much hope we’ve left behind.
—Bob Goff (American Philanthropist)

My main life lesson from investing: self-interest is the most powerful force on earth, and can get people to embrace and defend almost anything.
—Jesse Lauriston Livermore (American Investor)

Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman: if you have witness, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.
—Joseph Conrad (Polish-born British Novelist)

You must intensify and render continuous by repeatedly presenting with suggestive ideas and mental pictures of the feast of good things, and the flowing fountain, which awaits the successful achievement or attainment of the desires.
—Robert Collier (American Self-Help Author)

We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.
—Noam Chomsky (American Linguist, Social Critic)

We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life!
—Tennessee Williams (American Playwright)

Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.
—Salman Rushdie (Indian-born British Novelist)

To create is to resist, to resist is to create.
—Stephane Hessel (French Diplomat, Writer)

No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.
—William Osler (Canadian Physician)

If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your mirror.
—Francois Rabelais (French Humanist, Satirist)

In solitude, where we are least alone.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

Through loving devotion, their ego evaporates.
—The Guru Granth Sahib (Sacred Text of Sikhism)

The gods even envy him whose senses, like horses well broken in by the driver, have been subdued, who is free from pride, and free from appetites.
—The Dhammapada (Buddhist Anthology of Verses)

Don’t Ignore the Counterevidence

September 14, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Don't Ignore the Counterevidence---Consider objections to your viewpoints Left to themselves, much of our opinions and judgments are subjective, imprecise, incomplete, narrow-minded, or utterly unapprised.

A good critical-thinker deliberates objectively about alternative world-views that may cause him/her to philosophize differently. The English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill made an unparalleled case for this intellectual obligation in his treatise On Liberty (1859):

If the cultivation of the understanding consists in one thing more than in another, it is surely in learning the grounds of one’s own opinions. Whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to defend against at least the common objections. … on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record that he always studied his adversary’s case with as great, if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination.

Mill recommends anticipating the potential objections to one’s argument, coming to terms with the merits of opposing points of view, and establishing why the balance of reasons still supports one’s viewpoints:

Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess. … So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil’s advocate can conjure up.

Idea for Impact: Consider objections to your viewpoints; Remain open to alternative interpretations.

Suspend your inclinations and commitments and ask whether any of the objections have some force against your argument.

Don’t argue merely from those premises that appear compelling to you; address the premises that appear compelling to your opponent.

As Aristotle counseled, “The fool tells me his reasons; the wise man persuades me with my own.”

The Dramatic Fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes: Summary of John Carreyrou’s “Bad Blood”

September 10, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2018) is Wall Street Journal investigative reporter John Carreyrou’s remarkable exposé on Theranos, the former high-flying Silicon Valley tech startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes.

Theranos formally dissolved last week after a high-profile scandal revealed that the company not only deceived investors, but also risked the health of thousands of patients.

A Gripping Narrative, A Charismatic CEO, and A Big Fraud

In 2015, Theranos was one of Silicon Valley’s superstars. Valued at some $9 billion, Theranos claimed an out-and-out disruption of the $73-billion-a-year blood testing industry. Elizabeth Holmes pitched a revolutionary technology that could perform multiple tests on a few drops of capillary blood drawn by a minimally invasive finger prick, instead of the conventional—and much dreaded—venipuncture needle method.

The Story of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes received much adulation by the media Theranos has its origins in 2004, when the brilliant Holmes, then a 19-year old Stanford sophomore, dropped out of college to start the company. Her missionary narrative swayed just about everyone to believe in the potential she touted.

Over the years, Theranos attracted a $1 billion investment, an illustrious board of directors, influential business partners (Walgreens, Safeway, Cleveland Clinic,) and significant amounts of adulation by the media—all of this lent credence to Holmes’s undertaking. She was celebrated as the youngest, self-made female billionaire in the world.

Nobody Asked the Hard Questions

Theranos’s castle in the air started to crumble in October 2015, when Carreyrou’s first Wall Street Journal article reported that the company was embellishing the potential of Theranos’s technology. Based on past employees’ disclosures, the article also cast serious doubts on the reliability of Theranos’s science. Behind the scenes, Theranos performed a majority of its blood tests with commercial analyzers purchased from other companies.

The persistent question in Carreyrou’s Bad Blood is how the many smart people who funded, endorsed, defended, and wrote about this company never set aside their confidence in Holmes’s persuasions and looked beyond her claim of “30 tests from one drop of blood.”

Without much independent due diligence, Theranos’s supporters possibly assumed that everyone else had checked out the company, its founders, and its science. Theranos got away with its actions for as long as it did because no one could conceive of the idea that the business would simply lie as much as it did.

The Story of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes Appeared so Promising That Everybody Wanted it to Be True

Bad Blood also draws attention to Silicon Valley’s many failings, including the cult of the celebrity founder. Holmes’s smoke and mirrors was enabled by the notion of a “stealth mode” in which many Silicon Valley startups operate to protect their intellectual property. Theranos never proved that its testing technology really worked. It was performing tests on patients without having published peer-reviewed studies, getting FDA certification, or carrying out external evaluation by medical experts.

Carreyrou acknowledges that Holmes’s initial intentions were honorable, even if naïve. What triggered Holmes’s downfall was the characteristic entrepreneurial “fake it till you make it” ethos—it inhibited her from conceding early on that her ambitions were simply not viable.

When things didn’t go as intended, Holmes exploited the power of storytelling to get everyone to buy into her tales. She continued to believe that the reality of the technology would catch up with her vision in the future. Trapped in a web of hyperbole and overpromises, Holmes and her associate (as well as then-lover) Sunny Balwani operated a culture of fear and intimidation at Theranos. They went as far as hiring superstar lawyers to threaten and silence employees and anyone else who dared to challenge the company or expose its deficiencies.

Book Recommendation: Bad Blood is a Must-Read

Every inventor, entrepreneur, investor, and businessperson should read Bad Blood. It’s a fascinating and meticulously researched report of personal and corporate ambition unraveled by dishonesty. This page-turner is a New York Times bestseller and is expected to be made into a movie.

Inspirational Quotations #753

September 9, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

It’s better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.
—Marilyn Moats Kennedy (American Career Strategist, Author)

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

I’m amused by self-styled “busy” people. Busyness is as much a matter of identity as it is a reflection of time availability and schedule.
—Ben Casnocha (American Entrepreneur)

If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
—Zen Proverb (Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism)

People expect a certain reaction from a business and when you pleasantly exceed those expectations, you’ve somehow passed an important psychological threshold.
—Richard Thalheimer (American Entrepreneur)

Men of sense often learn from their enemies.—It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war; and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.
—Aristophanes (Greek Comic Playwright)

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.
—James Boswell (Scottish Biographer, Diarist)

It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute.
—C. William Pollard (American Businessman)

There exists a kind of laughter, which is worthy to be ranked with the higher lyric emotions and is infinitely different from the twitching of a mean merrymaker.
—Nikolai Gogol (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

Thrift is not an affair of the pocket, but an affair of character.
—S. W. Straus (American Banker, Philanthropist)

Any successful journey begins by packing your luggage full of imagination.
—Kathrine Palmer Peterson (American Author of Grief Books)

Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.
—Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The only living life is in the past and future—the present is an interlude—strange interlude in which we call on past and future to bear witness that we are living.
—Eugene O’Neill (American Playwright)

Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions than it is a result of being able to respond rapidly to real changes as they occur.
—Jack Welch (American Businessperson)

What’s the good of all our learning, knowing how to read and write and spell if no one ever teaches us the value of life, of our uniqueness, and personal dignity?
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

The less you know about a field, the better your odds. Dumb boldness is the best way to approach a new challenge.
—Jerry Seinfeld (American Comedian)

Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.
—Irene Claremont de Castillejo (British Psychoanalyst)

This is something I’ve struggled with a lot: how to relate to the fear in a constructive way. It’s not that you eliminate the fear. We have all the fears. That’s natural; that’s human beings. But how do you deal with the fears, how do you engage with your fears in a way that’s productive?
—Brad Feld (American Entrepreneur)

Beware of Key-Person Dependency Risk

September 7, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

Beware of Key-Person Dependency Risk

Key-Person Dependency Risk is the threat posed by an organization or a team’s over-reliance on one or a few individuals.

The key-person has sole custody of some critical institutional knowledge, creativity, reputation, or experience that makes him indispensable to the organization’s business continuity and its future performance. If he/she should leave, the organization suffers the loss of that valued standing and expertise.

Small businesses and start-ups are especially exposed to key-person dependency risk. Tesla, for example, faces a colossal key-man risk—its fate is linked closely to the actions of founder-CEO Elon Musk, who has come under scrutiny lately.

Much of Berkshire Hathaway’s performance over the decades has been based on CEO Warren Buffett’s reputation and his ability to wring remarkable deals from companies in duress. There’s a great deal of prestige in selling one’s business to Buffett. He is irreplaceable; given his remarkable long-term record of accomplishment, it is important that much of what he has built over the years remains intact once he is gone. Buffett has built a strong culture that is likely to endure.

Key Employees are Not Only Assets, but also Large Contingent Liabilities

The most famous “key man” of all time was Apple’s Steve Jobs. Not only was he closely linked to his company’s identity, but he also played a singular role in building Apple into the global consumer-technology powerhouse that it is. Jobs had steered Apple’s culture in a desired direction and groomed his handpicked management team to sustain Apple’s inventive culture after he was gone. Tim Cook, the operations genius who became Apple’s CEO after Jobs died in 2011, has led the company to new heights.

The basic solution to key-person dependency risk is to identify and document critical knowledge of the organization. (Capturing tacit knowledge is not easy when it resides “in the key-person’s head.”) Organizations must also focus on cross-training and succession planning to identify and enable others to develop and perform the same tasks as the key-person.

Idea for Impact: No employee should be indispensable. A well-managed company is never dependent upon the performance of one or a few individuals. As well, no employee should be allowed to hoard knowledge, relationships, or resources to achieve job security.

Summary of Richard Carlson’s “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff”

September 4, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Stress follows a peculiar principle: when life hits us with big crises—the death of a loved one or a job loss—we somehow find the inner strength to endure these upheavals in due course. It’s the little things that drive us insane day after day—traffic congestion, awful service at a restaurant, an overbearing coworker taking credit for your work, meddling in-laws, for example.

It’s all too easy to get caught up in the many irritations of life. We overdramatize and overreact to life’s myriad tribulations. Under the direct influence of anguish, our minds are bewildered and we feel disoriented. This creates stress, which makes the problems more difficult to deal with.

The central thesis of psychotherapist Richard Carlson’s bestselling Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff… And It’s All Small Stuff (1997) is this: to deal with angst or anger, what we need is not some upbeat self-help prescriptions for changing ourselves, but simply a measure of perspective.

Perspective helps us understand that there’s an art to understand what we should let go and what we should concern ourselves with. As I mentioned in my article on the concept of opportunity cost, it is important to focus our efforts on the important stuff, and not waste time on the insignificant and incidental things.

I’ve previously written about my favorite 5-5-5 technique for gaining perspective and guarding myself against anger erupting: I remove myself from the offending environment and contemplate if whatever I’m getting worked up over is of importance. I ask myself, “Will this matter in 5 days? Will this matter in 5 months? Will this matter in 5 years?”

Carlson stresses that there’s always a vantage point from which even the biggest stressor can be effectively dealt with. The challenge is to keep making that shift in perspective. When we achieve that “wise-person-in-me” perspective, our problems seem more controllable and our lives more peaceful.

Carlson’s prescriptions aren’t uncommon—we can learn to be more patient, compassionate, generous, grateful, and kind, all of which will improve the way we feel about ourselves and the way that other people feel when they are around us.

Some of Carlson’s 100 recommendations are trite and banal—for example, “make peace with imperfection,” “think of your problems as potential teachers,” “remember that when you die, your ‘in-basket’ won’t be empty,” and “do one thing at a time.” Others are more edifying:

Let others have the glory
Let others be “right” most of the time
Become aware of your moods and don’t allow yourself to be fooled by the low ones
Look beyond behavior
Every day, tell at least one person something you like, admire, or appreciate about them
Argue for your limitations, and they’re yours
Resist the urge to criticize
Read articles and books with entirely different points of view from your own and try to learn something

Carlson’s succinct insights have hit home with legions of the hurried and the harried. He became a bestselling author and a sought-after motivational speaker. Before his tragic death in 2006 at age 45, Carson followed up “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff…” with some 20 tacky spinoffs intended particularly for spouses, parents, teenagers, new-weds, employees, and lovers.

Inspirational Quotations #752

September 2, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

American dreams are strongest in the hearts of those who have seen America only in their dreams.
—Pico Iyer (British-born Essayist)

Innovation is the process of turning ideas into manufacturable and marketable form.
—Watts Humphrey (American Software Engineer)

And when a man injures and oppresses you and deals unjustly with you, you should deal kindly with him and forgive him. This you will strike at the root of hatred and enmity and he who is your enemy will become your friend.
—The Holy Quran (Sacred Scripture of Islam)

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, see to the worthy of being known.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

Two starving men cannot be twice as hungry as one; but two rascals can be ten times as vicious as one.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child’s play.
—Thomas Hardy (English Novelist, Poet)

I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking. It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest and living close to nature.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Children’s Novelist)

We do not consider our principles as dogmas contained in books that are said to come from heaven. We derive our inspiration, not from heaven, or from an unseen world, but directly from life.
—Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (Founder of the Turkish Republic)

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.
—Vladimir Nabokov (Russian-born American Novelist)

The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gas mask handy, it is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.
—Virginia Woolf (English Novelist)

Macro worries are like sports talk radio. Everyone has a good opinion, which probably means that none of them are good.
—Seth Klarman (American Investor)

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.
—Gertrude Stein (American Writer)

It seems to me that the advice of the Buddha was not to change how you think about things so that you’re happy and content with them as they are, but rather to see things as they are.
—Richard K. Payne (American Buddhist Theologian, Author)

There’s nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.
—Sophocles (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence.
—B. R. Ambedkar (Indian Jurist, Social Reformer)

We’re all just guessing, but some of us have fancier math.
—Josh Brown (American Financial Advisor)

Inspirational Quotations #751

August 26, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

It’s essentially impossible to become successful or well off doing a job that is described and measured by someone else. The only chance our country (your country, depends where you live), your economy and most of all, your family has to get ahead is this: make up new rules. People who make up new rules continue to be in very short supply.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Character is built into the spiritual fabric of personality hour by hour, day by day, year by year in much the same deliberate way that physical health is built into the body.
—E. Lamar Kincaid (American Protestant Minister)

Intolerance respecting other people’s religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people’s art.
—Wallace Stevens (American Poet)

You have two choices. You can keep running and hiding and blaming the world for your problems, or you can stand up for yourself and decide to be somebody important.
—Sidney Sheldon (American Novelist, Screenwriter)

If a man loves the labor of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.
—Madonna (American Pop Singer, Actress)

A conservative believes nothing should be done for the first time.
—Lynwood L. Giacomini (American Publisher, Bibliophile)

To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action when there is more reason to fear than to hope. ‘Tis the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)

The greater your capacity to love, the greater your capacity to feel the pain.
—Jennifer Aniston (American Actress)

We have too many people who live without working, and we have altogether too many who work without living.
—Charles Reynolds Brown (American Clergyman)

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
—Nelson Mandela (South African Political leader)

Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.
—Hippocrates (Ancient Greek Physician)

The advice that sounds the best in the short run is always the most dangerous in the long run.
—Jason Zweig (American Personal Finance Columnist)

Be open to learning new lessons even if they contradict the lessons you learned yesterday.
—Ellen DeGeneres (American Comedian, Television Host)

Seek those who find your road agreeable, your personality and mind stimulating, your philosophy acceptable, and your experiences helpful. Let those who do not, seek their own kind.
—Henri Fabre (French Aviator)

Boredom is not an end-product, is comparatively rather an early stage in life and art. You’ve got to go by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear product emerges.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

You must pray that the way be long, full of adventures and experiences.
—Constantine P. Cavafy (Egyptian Greek Poet)

Inspirational Quotations #750

August 19, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi

Let the motive be in the deed and not in the event. Be not one whose motive for action is the hope of reward.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

Men resist randomness, [stock] markets resist prophecy.
—Maggie Mahar (American Journalist, Author)

We pay attention with respect and interest, not in order to manipulate, but to understand what is true. And seeing what is true, the heart becomes free.
—Jack Kornfield (American Buddhist Teacher)

The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.
—Maria Montessori (Italian Physician, Educator)

When the fight begins within himself, a man’s worth something.
—Robert Browning (English Poet)

It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher)

If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don’t particularly like.
—Soichiro Honda (Japanese Inventor)

Greater the challenge, greater has been the achievements.
—Dhirubhai Ambani (Indian Businessperson)

All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.
—Shantideva (Indian Buddhist Scholar)

We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond the senses.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Some people regret that they have poor memories. Alas! It is much more difficult to forget.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (French Dancer, Actress)

An excuse is a lie guarded.
—Jonathan Swift (Irish Satirist)

The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass “no day without a line”—visit no place without the company of a book—we may with ease fill libraries, or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.
—Sophia Loren (Italian Actor)

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is little doubt as to which is at fault.
—Salvador Dali (Spanish Painter)

Work performed with higher knowledge or skill, capacity or ambition, usually brings a correspondingly higher reward.
—Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya (Indian Engineer)

Wondering what to read next?

Idea for Impact: Consider objections to your viewpoints; Remain open to alternative interpretations.

Wondering what to read next?

A Gripping Narrative, A Charismatic CEO, and A Big Fraud

Nobody Asked the Hard Questions

The Story of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes Appeared so Promising That Everybody Wanted it to Be True

Book Recommendation: Bad Blood is a Must-Read

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Key Employees are Not Only Assets, but also Large Contingent Liabilities

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