...If you think an awkward response to a friend’s crisis will make them feel bad, then you should know that if you say nothing, they will likely feel worse...

...The reward for a good habit is the habit itself...

...Each moment puts you in a better or worse position to handle the future. It’s that positioning that eventually makes life easier or harder...

...The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren’t those from a particular Tendency, but rather they’re the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract the weaknesses, and build the lives that work for them...

...the risk we should most fear is not the risk we easily imagine. It is the risk that we don’t...

...The simple questions in business are binary. Their answer is either yes or no. The trap is believing that all answers are binary. The answer to any question is actually a series of moves deployed in the proper sequence...

...Although EIPs may be plenty smart, they avoid self-reflection. Self-justifying and often self-righteous, they rarely question themselves. They focus on their immediate emotions and desires, seemingly oblivious to how they’re impacting others or even their own future...

...The human mind suffers from three ailments as it comes into contact with history, what I call the triplet of opacity. They are: the illusion of understanding, or how everyone thinks he knows what is going on in a world that is more complicated (or random) than they realize; the retrospective distortion, or how we can assess matters only after the fact, as if they were in a rearview mirror (history seems clearer and more organized in history books than in empirical reality); and the overvaluation of factual information and the handicap of authoritative and learned people, particularly when they create categories—when they “Platonify.”...

...Your brain loves questions and won’t reject them . . . unless the question is so big it triggers fear. By asking small, gentle questions, we keep the fight-or-flight response in the “off” position. Kaizen questions such as “What’s the smallest step I can take to be more efficient?” They allow the brain to focus on problem-solving and, eventually, action. Ask a question often enough, and you’ll find your brain storing the questions, turning them over, and eventually generating some interesting and useful responses...

...That is the most enduring lesson of the Madoff scandal: in a world full of lies, the most dangerous ones are those we tell ourselves...

...like it or not, your genes have constructed you to achieve three main goals: 1. Deliver genes into the future by reproducing. 2. Ensure the survival of your genetic copies or other similar copies. 3. After accomplishing #1 and #2, get out of the way so you don’t compete for limited resources with your offspring...

...“Your future growth and progress are now based in your understanding about the difference between the two ways in which you can measure yourself: against an ideal, which puts you in what I call ‘the GAP,’ and against your starting point, which puts you in ‘the GAIN,’ appreciating all that you’ve accomplished.”...

...No matter how far you have gone down the wrong path, turn back...

...success depends heavily on how we approach our interactions with other people. Every time we interact with another person at work, we have a choice to make: do we try to claim as much value as we can, or contribute value without worrying about what we receive in return?...

...Expressing gratitude regularly not only changes our thoughts and emotions but also strengthens our relationships and improves our health. Gratitude helps us live better and longer!...

...The startling conclusion at which they had all arrived, in different ways, was this: that the effort to try to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. And that it is our constant efforts to eliminate the negative – insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness – that is what causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy...

...Problems are inevitable, because our knowledge will always be infinitely far from complete. Some problems are hard, but it is a mistake to confuse hard problems with problems unlikely to be solved...

...Getting to great starts by cutting out stuff that’s merely good...

...Chatter consists of the cyclical negative thoughts and emotions that turn our singular capacity for introspection into a curse rather than a blessing. It puts our performance, decision making, relationships, happiness, and health in jeopardy. We think about that screwup at work or misunderstanding with a loved one and end up flooded by how bad we feel. Then we think about it again. And again. We introspect hoping to tap into our inner coach but find our inner critic instead...

...Tribal Leadership focuses on two things, and only two things: the words people use and the types of relationships they form. You can move forward only by bringing others with you...