When you’re dealing with an ambivalent relationship, you’re constantly on guard, grappling with questions of trust.
When you put off a task, you buy yourself time to engage in divergent thinking rather than foreclosing on one particular idea...
Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.
Good guys are most likely to finish last, but also most likely to finish first.
Enemies make better allies than frenemies.
Negative relationships are unpleasant but predictable.
Conviction in our ideas is dangerous not only because it leaves us vulnerable to false positives, but also because it stops us from generating the requisite variety to reach our creative potential.
Givers reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to see interdependence as a source of strength, a way to harness the skills of multiple people for a greater good.
Originality brings more bumps in the road, yet it leaves us with more happiness and a greater sense of meaning.
Rather than looking outward in an attempt to predict the outcome, you turn inward to your identity. You base the decision on who you are – or who you want to be.
And they act in the face of risk, because their fear of not succeeding exceeds their fear of failing.
The personality trait most associated with an interest in the arts is called openness, the tendency to seek out novelty in intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional pursuits.
Chip Conley, the renowned entrepreneur who founded Joie de Vivre Hotels, explains, “Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.
Dissenting opinions are useful, even when they are wrong.
As Chris Granger, executive vice president at the NBA, explains, “Talented people are attracted to those who care about them. When you help someone get promoted out of your team, it’s a short-term loss, but it’s a clear long-term gain. It’s easier to attract people, because word gets around that your philosophy is to help people.
Excellence is the product of high aspirations and low ego.
Reasoning does create a paradox: it leads both to more rule following and more rebelliousness. By explaining moral principles, parents encourage their children to comply voluntarily with rules that align with important values and to question rules that don’t. Good explanations enable children to develop a code of ethics that often coincides with societal expectations; when they don’t square up, children rely on the internal compass of values rather than the external compass of rules.
Original thinkers doubt the default.
Passionate people don’t wear their passion on their sleeves; they have it in their hearts.
Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.