...The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it - Michelangelo...

...Yet the real enigma of life is not what happens after you die but what happens before you die...

...There are two things that determine how our lives turn out: the quality of our decisions and luck...

...Why knowledge of what needs to be done frequently fails to result in action or behavior consistent with that knowledge. We came to call this the knowing-doing problem - the challenge of turning knowledge about how to enhance organizational performance into actions consistent with that knowledge...

...Reclaim Dead Time - Time is the critical factor in our lives, our most precious resource...

...To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We’ve got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens...

...The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. MICHELANGELO...

...this insider’s account of 1980's Wall Street excess...

...Like an artist who pursues both enduring excellence and shocking creativity, great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change...

...The only way to get what you’re worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about...

...Motivation is much less about external prodding or stimulation, and much more about what’s inside of you, and inside of your work...

..."You want a job description? It’s very simple: figure out what needs to be done and do it!"...

...The ultimate story of greed and glory, Barbarians at the Gate is the gripping account of these two frenzied months, of deal makers and publicity flaks, of an old-line industrial powerhouse that became the victim of the ruthless and rapacious style of finance in the 1980s...

...Sorting something that you will never search is a complete waste; searching something you never sorted is merely inefficient...

...Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done...

...To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction...

...Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage...

...Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something...

...It is a lifetime accumulation of deliberate practice that again and again ends up explaining excellence...

...The moment you have an instinct to act on a goal you must 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move or your brain will stop you...