Beta is an act of transparency and an admission of humility.
— @jeffjarvis

Voltaire was half right. “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien,” he said: The best is the enemy of the good. The best is also the enemy of the better. Striving for perfection complicates and delays getting things done. Worse, the myth of perfection can shut off the process of improvement and the possibility of collaboration.

I’ve designed my job carefully to have other people do significant pieces of the thick slice doled out to me.
— Roger Martin

I think that generally, we take on too thick a slice of work tasks because often that is the way work is doled out. For example, the task of being Dean of the Rotman School of Management is doled out in one big bundle. If I actually did the bundle handed to me, I wouldn’t be nearly as happy or productive as I am. The slice is so thick that I wouldn’t be able to do the things that I am more qualified to do than those around me—such as writing articles and books that enhance the reputation of the School outside our home market.

The annual performance review is deeply flawed in at least two ways
— @danielpink

Many of us interpret our younger colleagues’ badgering as some sort of deep-seated emotional neediness—the legacy of cushy childhoods in which, at breakfast each morning, their parents fed them heaping bowls of self-esteem.

Alas—and it pains me slightly to admit this—I think we’ve got it wrong. The question we should be asking isn’t “What’s the matter with Millennials?” Instead, we ought to ask: “What’s the matter with the workplace?”

Build relationships of trust, generosity, and mutual support
— @lyndagratton

You’re feeling tired and frazzled—overcome with deadlines and emails. Perhaps now is the time to learn how to assemble and ride with a posse.

I first learnt this term when I asked Inez, a rookie management consultant, how she got her job done. She pointed to her computer screen, along the bottom of which was arrayed a row of names and faces, and she told me: “This is my posse. They ride with me and we help each other out.”

If the pivotal moments of creation were easy or rational, everyone would make the choice to push forward
— @jonathanfields

The next morning, my world came crashing down. Two planes hit the towers, friends were lost, and there I sat with a freshly minted six-year lease to launch a business in a city that was both in flames and in mourning.

The logical thing, the safe option, would have been to fold the newly formed corporation and walk away. But I couldn’t. If this was the thing I had to do before, it had now become the thing my city needed more than anything.

The thing I needed.

People working on their personal brand sometimes seem a little snake-oil salesy-like
— @mitchjoel

Whether you are an employee in a big, medium, or small business, or an entrepreneur, or about to enter the workforce, never has it been more important to understand the power of having, maintaining, and developing a strong personal brand. Never before have there been more ways for you to connect and to build your personal brand through digital channels.

The cost of our silence: when issues stay unaddressed, stagnant, broken, we all fail
— @nilofer

Maybe we know we really should speak up. But who wants to be a bearer of bad news to the powers that be? What if we’re wrong? What if we’re mocked? As Lincoln has been known to say, better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than speak up and remove all doubt. And so, in the end, too many times, we choose silence. We don’t express our viewpoint and offer what we think could help.

Don’t blend in; instead, clash with your environment
— @nancyduarte

The enemy of persuasion is obscurity. If you have an important message to get out, it must stand out, not blend in. Most presentations today err by being boring and bland—but with a little work, your ideas can get the attention they deserve.

You can learn what attracts attention by examining the opposite: camouflage. The purpose of camouflage is to reduce the odds that someone will notice you—and to do this by blending into the environment. But when is blending in appropriate for a communicator?

Honestly evaluate how much of your life you’re spending consuming information
— @gwenbell

What matters? The fire marshal asks it differently. He walks into your neighbor’s house, where you’ve set up camp. He wipes soot off his face with the back of his hand. Then he asks, “In the unlikely event you’re permitted to go back in there, what are you going to grab? Make a list.”

You realize something when you don’t know what’s left of what you own. You’re fully equipped with all that you need now, in the present moment. This very body. This very breath. You’ve got that. In a simple, refreshing way, when you’re taking stock of what’s left after catastrophe, what you really sense is how alive your body is. How each breath breathes you. In deep sadness and loss, you witness delight. You’re alive.

End Malaria will strike some as an odd title for a business book. But the number-one lesson in storytelling? Never bury the lead. The purpose of this compilation is to raise funds for the fight against malaria—a preventable and treatable disease that is spread by mosquitoes and kills more than 750,000 people every year. End Malaria puts the charitable mission of this project at center stage.

This book is a great example of how doing good makes good business sense. By purchasing End Malaria, you’ve donated $20 to Malaria No More to support our efforts to stop children from dying from the absurdity of a mosquito bite. But you’ve also given yourself the chance to learn from some of the biggest business greats in their respective industries, including Seth Godin, Alan Webber, Dan Pink, and Gina Trapani. Not a bad payout for helping families in Africa protect their children from a deadly disease.

Our approach to ending malaria is based on the same principles of any business. It starts with an idea and grows from there, taking one single spark of inspiration and adding just enough focus, ambition, and resilience to make that idea a reality. Every good business sets out to accomplish a specific, deliverable goal, and fighting malaria is no different—our goal is to end malaria deaths in Africa by 2015.

The authors of this compilation came together to share their lessons learned in the business world and to give advice on how to get the most out of an idea, team, or business. Their shared goal is not just to do good work—but also to do good. By participating in this book—either by contributing to it or by purchasing it—you’re helping African families defeat malaria once and for all.

Thank you for helping to put malaria out of business.

Escape velocity is about that very moment of pushing past the gravitational pull of what isn’t working
— @chrisbrogan

I’ve been thinking about escape velocity since the beginning of 2010. In scientific terms, escape velocity is the speed one needs to attain to leave the gravitational pull of a planet. It seems like the perfect way to explain that time when we’re stuck in a behavior or a situation and can’t yet pull free to move to a new, better thing. Escape velocity, to me, is that effort you put in to shift from the bad situation to the better situation before you’re able to make the big move.

I guarantee that designing a morning ritual will help you be more relaxed, more focused, and more productive
@keithferrazzi

Almost all of you, I’m willing to bet, have a “morning ritual.”

But how many of you have created one by design? This is so important to individual effectiveness, for everyone but especially for entrepreneurs who work independently or at home.

We’ve come to believe that conference calls are inherently boring and unchangeable
— Patrick Lencioni

No family would say, “Well, Dad lives in New York, Mom lives in San Francisco, and the kids are spread around the country, but thanks to my iPhone and computer, it’s no different than living under the same roof.” The simple but often overlooked truth is that without the daily interaction of breakfast or dinner or homework or late-night conversations or doing the dishes, a family can’t possibly develop and maintain the strength that it needs to thrive during good times and survive during challenging ones. The same is true for teams who have no incidental conversations in the hallway or at lunch or in the elevator.

When I’m not doing anything else, I’m cleaning up
— @gtdguy

I don’t usually work in a neat fashion. Whether I’m writing an essay, arranging flowers, or making guacamole, I wind up strewing stuff all over the place. If you were to walk into my office while I was working or thinking about something, you’d likely see notes, books, and files strewn around somewhat randomly; a mind-map on my computer screen; and doodles and words scrawled on my whiteboard. When I really get involved in something and my creative juices start flowing, it’s likely to look like something exploded in the middle of it. I have a singular focus, but the process doesn’t seem orderly until it’s done. My best work happens that way. Yours will too.

But if you’re already in a mess, you’re not free to make one. If you have a desk piled with unfinished, unclear work; if you’re trying to repair something in your garage with tools and incomplete projects strewn everywhere; if you’ve got a thousand unprocessed emails on your computer; or if you’ve just got a lot of issues and situations on your mind, you’re going to be laboring under a serious handicap.

On any given day, more than 2 million children in the United States go to sleep without one very important necessity: a bed.

But the implications of not having a warm bed to sleep in are far greater than the mere question of comfort; safety, health, and general living conditions.

The families of these children are trying to get back on their feet. Some come from homeless shelters after having had financial difficulties and don’t have the resources to buy furniture. Others are simply struggling. They live in low-income areas and can’t afford the cost of a mattress.

The truth of the matter is that the ground or a poorly made mattress is bad for your health. It can lead to significant health problems such as lower back pain and sleep deprivation. In fact, an estimated 70 million Americans suffer from sleep deprivation each year.

But Ashley Sleep believes in a good night’s rest.

We believe that a quality night’s sleep should be available to everyone, which is precisely why we launched our “A Hope to Dream” program.

Founded in 2010 by Ashley Furniture HomeStore, “A Hope To Dream” seeks to provide thousands of children with a mattress set—an essential part of a good night’s sleep. For every mattress sold in enterprise stores, $5 will be donated to the “A Hope To Dream” campaign.

If you want to work more meaningfully, design thinking will help you lead the way
— @kabbenbock

When deep empathy isn’t applied to guide decision making, the fear of failure exerts influence over decision processes, and rapid prototyping is rarely used to solicit quick and early feedback. Design thinking offers tools to address these challenges. It helps creators get into other people’s heads and hearts, understand their needs, and iteratively test alternative approaches to learn how best to fulfill those needs.

There’s only so far we can get with technological improvements
— Gopi Kallayil

People often ask me if Google is the most insanely awesome place to work or if it’s like being inside the lion’s den.

It’s both.

The pace of innovation, the gifted people, and the work environment make it amazing. And at the same time, there’s a lot of pressure because of the fast pace, deadlines, meetings, emails, and complexity.

Finish this sentence: “In a perfect world…”
— @sivers

On the personal side, this exercise makes you realize what kind of life you’d really like to be living, which is a great reminder for those thousand tiny daily decisions that can keep you pointed that way.

On the business side, it’s the root of all great business ventures. The point of making a business is not to make money—it’s to make your little corner of the world perfect.

Wanting to do two non-compatible things has a name. It’s called stress
— @ThisIsSethsBlog

Are you racing to the top or racing to the bottom?

Are you going to become ever more compliant, ever better at fitting in, or are you prepared to commit to standing out and following your own map? Can’t do both.

Prioritization is actually the process of deciding what’s not important
— @joshkaufman

Most people think of prioritization as “deciding what’s most important.” The trouble with that definition is that it easily leads to feeling overwhelmed—way too many things feel important at once. (If it wasn’t important, it wouldn’t be on your list.)

That why it’s easy to feel overworked and stressed out: unless you make a conscious choice, your mind will continue to want everything, all at once.

The focus of this trip was on hardcore life-and-death issues
— @richardlapchick

The purpose of the Basketball Without Borders program in Africa is to bring together the sixty best young African male players to be trained in basketball skills as well as in life skills, such as leadership, character development, and teamwork, and to involve the players in the community to demonstrate the power of sport to make life better. This year, forty girls were in another camp doing some of the same things as the men.

The future, in other words, arrives in fits and starts
— Nicholas Carr

There’s an important lesson here: When a disruptive new technology arrives, the greatest business opportunities often lie not in creating the disruption but in mending it—in figuring out, as Reuters did, a way to use an older, established technology as a bridge to carry customers to the benefits of the emerging technology.

Most of us dream in the wrong direction
— @jonacuff

As we survey the black hole of endless possibility, we often get overwhelmed in that moment. We don’t know where to start when we ask discovery questions, so we stop. We freeze. We get paralyzed and give up dreaming before we’ve even really begun.

People, purpose, personal growth— the conditions for great work
— @alanmwebber

For me, great work starts with being part of a great team. Your own work will benefit from being part of a committed, smart, energetic group of people. People you can make common cause with, people you can learn from, people you can fight for—and even fight with. At Fast Company magazine, my simple rule of thumb was, if I hired someone, and then in the morning I tried to avoid walking anywhere near his desk because I didn’t want to deal with him, that was a bad hire.

Good. True. Helpful: Three words from Ann Landers that make the difference
— @unmarketing

People say marketing is an external task. It’s getting current and potential customers to have an open mind about a purchase. However, marketing is internal as well. We are always marketing. It’s not a task or an action item or a position. Internal marketing can be referred to as HR, but then we take a different approach. We try to see how we can “manage” people, which makes it sound like it’s a chore.

Choose. Start. Stop. This single 90-minute practice has been life changing for me
— @tonyschwartz

Many of us unwittingly train ourselves to ignore our bodies’ signals that we need a rest—difficulty concentrating, physical restlessness, irritability. Instead, we find ways to override this need with caffeine, sugar, and our own stress hormones—adrenalin, noradrenalin, and cortisol—all of which provide short bursts of energy but leave us over-aroused.

By intentionally aligning with my body’s natural rhythms, I’ve learned to listen to its signals. When I notice them, it usually means I’ve hit the 90-minute mark. At that point, I take a break, even if I feel I’m on a roll, because I’ve learned that if I don’t, I’ll pay the price later in the day.

Such lapses in attention turn out to be a crucial creative skill
— @jonahlehrer

In recent years, however, scientists have begun to outline the surprising benefits of not paying attention. Sometimes, too much focus can backfire; all that caffeine gets in the way. For instance, researchers have found a surprising link between daydreaming and creativity—people who daydream more are also better at generating new ideas.

Other studies have found that employees are more productive when they’re allowed to engage in “Internet leisure browsing,” and that people unable to concentrate due to severe brain damage actually score above average on various problem-solving tasks.

Your brain puts more emphasis on minimizing danger than it does on maximizing reward
— @davidrock101

It’s important to realize that money isn’t intrinsically motivating in many situations. If you give someone a bonus, but the circumstances are unfair, she might feel angry and threatened rather than rewarded. And when you recognize that autonomy is a reward in most situations, you’ll let your staff have more responsibility and make more choices—and this will be more rewarding than a bonus.

Connection is at the heart of anything we do, and selling is no exception
— @heyLaurynbee

Great conversations are natural and unplanned. They’re impromptu. In essence, they’re made up, although we don’t like to call them that because that would seem unprofessional or absurd. In fact, that is what a true conversation is! It’s acting in the moment with purpose and intent while allowing yourself to shine through. And that, you can’t script.

In the end, you get to regard your scars as a source of strength and wisdom, or as ties that bind
—@boxofcrayons

We’re all carrying more subtle scars as well, emotional bruises from our past.

Times we’ve shamed or been shamed.

Times we’ve shunned or been shunned.

Times when we’ve failed or caused others to fail.

Times when we’ve let ourselves or others down.

These are older, deeper wounds, subtle and hidden. They can shape our behavior in significant ways.

We seek to substitute rules for discretion, scripts for imagination
— Barry Schwartz

Thus, if we want more satisfied customers, we should limit the choices we offer to them. And if we want more effective and happier employees, we should increase the choices we offer to them. Less choice and discretion for our customers, and more choice and discretion for our employees. At the moment, we’ve got things exactly backwards.

Recently it began to dawn on me that there is another stage beyond doing things well and with love.
— Kevin Kelly

As you educate yourself about your own talent and ambitions, you graduate from doing a task right to doing the right task. It takes some experience to realize that a lot of work is better left undone. It might be busywork that is performed out of habit, or it might be work that is heading in the wrong direction. Working smart means making sure you are spending your time on jobs that are effective and that actually need to be done.

But the smart journey doesn’t end there. If you really pay attention to the feedback of those around you, and constantly strive to improve, you may eventually be able to discover your own best talents. At this stage, you can begin to do only the jobs that you are good at doing and that need to be done. And what a joy that is! For many years I thought this was the pinnacle of working wisdom. What could be more heavenly than to spend your energies only on those tasks you were both good at AND loved?

Squirrels freeze. Leaders lead
— @DaveRamsey

After several years in business, I finally figured out that fear was the root of all of my indecision. Every time I found myself going back and forth for hours and days and weeks on a decision, I traced it back to some specific fear. Once I realized what was going on, making decisions got a lot easier.

The color, texture, size, and style of the materials used to capture your tasks (and your notes) are important
— @scottbelsky

In the era of Google Analytics and Twitter, we spend too much time obsessing over real-time data. Just a decade ago, we had to wait for weekly and monthly reports to get information that is now always available at our fingertips. Whether you are checking your site’s traffic, customer sentiment, or your bank account, these small repetitive actions don’t help you make ideas happen. They just help you feel safe.

“Insecurity Work” is stuff you do that (1) has no intended outcome, (2) does not move the ball forward in any way, and (3) is quick enough that you can do it multiple times a day without realizing it—but nonetheless puts you at ease. The first step in reducing Insecurity Work is gaining self-awareness. The ways and means of reducing this distraction are nearly infinite—I’ve been astonished by the spectrum of self-imposed guidelines and very effective rituals that people use to reduce Insecurity Work.

You have to celebrate with equal gusto whether the project is a failure or a success
— @charleneli

I’m not asking that you just accept failure; instead, I’m asking that you make your organization resilient in the face of failure so that you can confidently and more aggressively embrace risk. Otherwise, you and your organization will take on only those new risks that have a high chance of success, because the perceived penalties of failure are too high. And these changes will be so incremental that the impact on your bottom line will be incremental as well.

Rather than doing the difficult work of embracing our own vulnerabilities we expose, attack, and ridicule
— @brenebrown

The invulnerability shield takes on many shapes and forms. Some of us protect ourselves with perfecting, pretending, and pleasing. We convince ourselves that making everything “just right” and keeping everyone around us happy will minimize our risk of feeling blamed, judged, or criticized. Even though perfecting is exhausting and ultimately leads to resentment and blame, we keep thinking, “Maybe I just need to be a little more perfect.”

Invulnerability can also take the form of low-grade disconnection. We protect ourselves by never quite being “all in.” We never get too excited or too attached or too hopeful. We’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The motto becomes, “It’s easier to live disappointed than it is to feel disappointed.”

When you’re recognized for great work, more people want to work with you and help you help others
— @ginatrapani

Great work is doing stuff that gives back to the world, as well as serving your own purposes. It’s the difference between writing things down to remember them versus writing things down to teach others. For me, writing about technology does both. But having knowledge isn’t nearly as meaningful as sharing it. For me, great work is about service.

Here’s the catch: caring about the customer is a mindset, not a tactic
— @GaryVee

The challenge is that there are a lot of distractions that keep us from connecting with customers. But you have to do it, instead of just talking about it. When you commit to making true engagements, that’s when the rubber hits the road.

It boils down to three key elements: growth, creativity, and feedback
— @kiva

People need opportunities to be creative; it’s absolutely vital. What I’ve learned is that if people feel like they need to paint by numbers, they’ll work at one-third of their productivity level. So we’ve created a system in which once in every five iteration cycles, our engineers do an “innovation” iteration, in which they can release any kind of programming code they want. And what we’ve found is that they create three times as much code during the innovation iteration. People can experiment without asking for permission, and this creates a huge boost in morale.

Quite often the greatest distance leaders have to travel is the distance from their mouths to their feet
Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner

It turns out that the believability of the leader trumps everything else. Leader credibility determines whether people will willingly give more of their time, talent, energy, experience, intelligence, creativity, and support. It’s also the strongest influencer of unit profitability and performance. Only credible leaders earn commitment, and only commitment builds and regenerates great organizations and communities.

You need symbols, sounds, and words to remind you of the passion you feel for making an impact with your work
— @PamSlim

One thing is certain: after you dig deep and find your root, clarify your vision of success, and assemble your crew, you will wake up one morning and forget everything.

All you will feel is loneliness and fear.

The big idea here is that you can’t just be about it; you need to live it
— @TheSharkDaymond

I remember walking around the streets of Hollis, Queens, as a little boy and feeling a new sort of energy in the community. Many people will tell you that energy came from the emergence of this new music genre called hip-hop, but it goes much further than that. You see, when Hollis natives like Russell Simmons, the members of Salt-N-Pepa (Cheryl James, Sandy Denton, and Deidra “Dee Dee” Roper), and LL Cool J became superstars, their fans didn’t idolize them for only their music. There was an obsession among millions of people, including myself, who admired how these rappers walked, talked, and most important, dressed.

That energy was less about a new type of music and more about the birth of a new lifestyle.

Adobe encourages employees to “learn and grow in place” in the context of their work environment
— @mdaimler

Learning and development at Adobe is not just about helping employees get to the next rung of the corporate ladder—although that’s part of it. It is also about helping employees learn more about themselves within the organization to help them progress along their individual paths, fulfill their personal potential, and contribute to the greater good.

Honoring other people’s creativity and success shakes loose our own brilliance.
— @DanielleLaPorte

3. Give up quickly
If something feels like a drag and is not generating the right response, drop it like a hot potato. As Seth Godin says in his book The Dip, “Fail fast.”
In order to give up quickly, you have to…

4. Courageously express your feelings
When something feels very wrong, totally uninspiring, say so—to yourself and your team. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you give up; it may spin you off into a better solution.

Scheduling just 5 percent of your week to reflect, think, and create can yield dramatic results.
— @JoshLinkner

Take a quick look at your schedule for the next two weeks. If you are like most people, your calendar is packed to the gills with endless appointments, meetings, conference calls, and deadlines. When, in this insanely busy schedule, are you planning to come up with your best ideas?

Focus is overrated
— @stevenbjohnson

So imagine a primordial soup with a few swirling atoms of various elements. The adjacent possible of that system is defined by all the various molecules that can be formed by those atoms. It’s a very useful concept, because it works just as easily for cultural systems as it does for biological systems. When humans started walking upright, it opened up the adjacent possible for more complex tool use because our hands were freed up. When we invented vacuum tubes and integrated circuits, it opened up the adjacent possible for computers.

People are not mind readers, so you need to speak up
— Ryan Vanderbilt

About a year ago I hit an all-time low, at work and in life. I was working at an amazing company and was surrounded by amazing and genuinely good people.

But after a while, it didn’t matter; my thoughts had completely taken over. I ended up taking a leave of absence that lasted for three and a half months. I’ve been back for a while now and am in absolute heaven. It’s the same group, same company, but a completely different experience. What did change is how I think and behave in my life. I learned a lot during my leave; I hope some of what I learned can be helpful for you or someone you know.

I feel compelled to say: stop complaining and start leading
— @biswasdiener

How can you be more courageous? How can you up the ante on your courage quotient and be more willing to act? I have interviewed dozens of people who are naturally high in courage—high-powered lawyers, small-business entrepreneurs, HR professionals, and executives—and they point to a number of personal practices that help them—as one woman put it—step through fear.

First, understand that your approach to work overload and other tough situations is a matter of attitude. Complaints about what is wrong can be replaced with the question “how am I (or how are we) going to get through this?” This leads directly to a solutions-focused mindset that is more pleasant, engaging, and capacity building.

The real answer is always introspection
— @simpletonbill

Business is broken and it needs your help. For decades, business has offloaded too much work onto you by being completely corporate-centered in how it built tools, processes, and procedures—ensuring your company’s success, but not necessarily yours.

In a competitive environment, the middle position is death
— @sallyhogshead

So on one side, we have the Lovers. On the other side, we have the Haters. Between them is a no-man’s land filled with dead ends and disengagement. This is where you’ll find those lukewarm lollygaggers who suck up your time, effort, and resources but give little loyalty or value in return. These are the Middlers.

Take time out for daydreaming—it’s where you can find the seeds of excellence
— @tom_peters

The epigraph of my most recent book is a quote by American statesman Henry Clay: “Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.” You can be a tough son of a gun in business but be decent and kind and thoughtful.

Kindness is free. Thoughtfulness is free. And people will remember that kindness thirty years later.

If you’re jonesing for a new career, you’re not alone
— @alevit

A surprising statistic from Robert Half International’s Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations (EDGE) Report revealed that more than half of employees plan to make a career change or go back to school.

Given those aspirations, you might want to take steps now—while you still have a paying job—to make your future transition easier.

By encouraging people to be curious and be present, we find that extraordinary things can happen.
— Sally Bonneywell, Kim Lafferty & Sue Cruse

Leaders need to be inspirational to bring others with them during challenging and turbulent times. The Inspirational Leadership Programme at GlaxoSmithKline brings together elements of psychology, philosophy, and the performing arts to help leaders make sense of their work in relation to their deepest values and then articulate a clear message in a compelling way. It is about looking at how different elements of your life have come together and are coalescing around key messages, actions, and ways of being that make meaning in your life and your work. People change the way they view themselves and their relationships with others—in ways that are lasting and profound—and talk to their teams about it.

For decades, Sesame Workshop has been leveraging the power of media to improve the lives of children around the world.
— @sesameworkshop

For decades, Sesame Workshop has been leveraging the power of media to improve the lives of children around the world. Tackling HIV/AIDS awareness among young children is something South Africa needed assistance with, and we were able to help. But we could not get there alone. We partnered with the local broadcaster, the South African Broadcast Company (“SABC”), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Sanlam Life to create Takalani Sesame, a localized co-production of Sesame Street. In addition to our typical focus on literacy and numeracy, Takalani Sesame has a special focus on HIV/AIDS awareness and safety. The show aims to reduce the stigma around the disease and to promote tolerance of those who have it.

Don’t make a thirty-step plan; make a two-step plan: think about it and do something about it
— @chrisguillebeau

But if you want to slay another dragon, look at the one in the mirror. The truly courageous know that courage is most significant when you are facing your own weaknesses. You’ve probably heard that you should focus on your strengths, and that’s usually a good idea—but you also can’t proceed blindly ahead, pretending you have no weaknesses. Instead, show courage by being willing to change yourself.

The critical question becomes: how do you turn a “job” into a “work”
— @macdarling

Or maybe you feel like a dead (wo)man walking, hating what you do but too scared to jump. A wobbly economy whiplashes everyone. Wall Street meltdowns, corporate greed, and icon-like presidents who crash as fallen idols make daily headlines. Just hunker down and wait it out.

And tomorrow you die.

No one ever complained that Picasso failed to invent new colors
— @lesmckeown

In the world of information engineers (which we all are these days), our raw materials are blocks of raw information that we need to somehow transform into something great—a plan, a proposal, a report, a blueprint, a book, a product, a speech, a presentation, a conversation… whatever it is that you do each day. And it’s in how we interpret those blocks of raw data—and even more important, how we communicate our interpretation—that greatness lies.

In my experience, many people settle for too little
— @SirKenRobinson

Think about how many of those 80 billion or so people had to meet each other and hang out, and in what different circumstances, during the course of those fifty thousand years, before your own parents ran into each other and eventually conceived you. The fact is, as the Dalai Lama puts it, being born at all is a miracle.

So congratulations: you made it.

And now that you are here, to quote the Dalai Lama again, what are you going to do with this brief life?

A half-hearted stab at humor won’t resonate. Don’t whimper through the corner of your mouth—sing out!
— @SCorkerIrwin

Being unapologetically funny won’t alienate your customers—or team members. Quite the opposite. Humor is about vulnerability. Vulnerability is about humanity. And at lululemon, we design our business to support and sustain our humans—not the other way around.

It is necessary to “positively disrupt” the rhythms and routines that prevent us from living and working optimally
— Rich Fernandez

We also have an opportunity to optimize ourselves, to rebalance and calibrate our “personal operating systems”—the ways that we are choosing to live and work—for the benefit of ourselves and others. Just as you could not run a very old operating system on your computer and make it function effectively in contemporary life, we have little choice but to find new ways of working, living, and being in order to function effectively in our increasingly complex, dynamic, and technology-rich world.