...Stress is what arises when something you care about is at stake. This definition is big enough to hold both the frustration over traffic and the grief over a loss. It includes your thoughts, emotions, and physical reactions when you’re feeling stressed, as well as how you choose to cope with situations you’d describe as stressful. This definition also highlights an important truth about stress: Stress and meaning are inextricably linked. You don’t stress out about things you don’t care about, and you can’t create a meaningful life without experiencing some stress...

...Every systemic market injustice arose from some loophole in a regulation created to correct some prior injustice...

...Questions you can wait hours to learn the answers to are fine to put in an email. Questions that require answers in the next few minutes can go into an instant message. For crises that truly merit a sky-is-falling designation, you can use that old-fashioned invention called the telephone...

...In general, TV makes us worry about the wrong things. Your brain is better at filtering out media hype when it is reading. Words have less emotional salience than images. So it’s much healthier to read the news than watch it...

...The rewards and recognition that stem from being great at something will make you passionate about whatever that something is...

...From wrestling an alligator to evading drones to landing an airplane if the pilot passes out, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook is here to help with expert, illustrated, step-by-step instructions for the best ways to tackle life's sudden turns for the worse...

...Prophets look at the world as finite, and people as constrained by their environment. Wizards see possibilities as inexhaustible, and humans as wily managers of the planet. One views growth and development as the lot and blessing of our species; others regard stability and preservation as our future and our goal. Wizards regard Earth as a toolbox, its contents freely available for use; Prophets think of the natural world as embodying an overarching order that should not casually be disturbed...

...We think all people are honest, but they’re more honest if you watch them like a hawk...

...Being gameful means bringing the psychological strengths you naturally display when you play games—such as optimism, creativity, courage, and determination—to your real life. It means having the curiosity and openness to play with different strategies to discover what works best. It means building up the resilience to tackle tougher and tougher challenges with greater and greater success...

...Wealth = Focus + (Stoicism x Time x Diversification)...

...In fairness to Mr. Einstein, his theory says that time is relative to the inertial frame in which it is measured, not that it is subjective. The human experience of time is, of course, subjective, and it speeds up or slows down depending on how demanding, varied, and pleasant an interval is...

...The subjects solved creative problems better during their non-optimal times, when they were tired and groggy. They solved analytical problems at their optimal times, when they were wide-awake and alert...

...when we help others become better, we can actually increase the available opportunities, instead of vying for them. Like the lightning bugs, once we learn to coordinate and collaborate with those around us, we all begin to shine brighter, both individually and as an ecosystem...

...If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today—as of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work...

...Flavor is much more than a distinctive smell or taste; it involves our emotions, and sometimes memories, intertwined with our sense of the sounds, colors, shapes, and textures of our food...

...The computer scientists found that a huge percentage of stories fit into one of six relatively simple structures. They are, borrowing a chart from Reagan’s team: Rags to Riches (rise) Riches to Rags (fall) Man in a Hole (fall, then rise) Icarus (rise, then fall) Cinderella (rise, then fall, then rise) Oedipus (fall, then rise, then fall)...

...Finding something you lost a long time ago after you already gave up looking for it...

...The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives—and the less free we are...

...Speaking to Han, Obi-Wan came close to making the point: “In my experience there is no such thing as luck, my young friend—only highly favorable adjustments of multiple factors to incline events in one’s favor.”...

...You can ask them and discover the answers now, or not ask them and discover the answers later...