...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...
...You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems...
...What look like differences in natural ability are often differences in opportunity and motivation...
...Make friends with people who want the best for you...
...The people we love most should not be content getting whatever time is left over...
...The best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on...
...Things that never change are important because you can put so much confidence into knowing how they’ll shape the future...
Ed. Note - I swam with / competed against the author Mark Tewksbury
...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.”...
