Notes & Quotes: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

The following are my favorites quotes from Mel Robbins's The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About.

1. Small, consistent action changes everything.
2. Other people hold no real power over you unless you give it to them.
3. There is one thing you will never be able to control. No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to control or change another person. The only person you are in control of is you. Your thoughts, your actions, your feelings.
4. Let Them wasn't about giving in. It was about releasing myself from the control I never had in the first place.
5. The urge to control things comes from a very primal place: fear.
6. Anytime you internalize other people's thoughts, actions, and feelings as evidence that somehow you're a bad person or you've done something wrong, you just gave other people power. And it shifts the dynamic and balance in the relationship. You feel beneath them.
7. Your silence can't be misquoted.
8. There is always a next move.
9. Yes, it may take you six months to land something amazing, but those six months are going to go by whether you do nothing or you go after what you want.
10. If it matters, be the one everyone else is waiting for. Create the change you want to see. That's the power of Let Me.
11. All it takes is one person to do the right thing. And if it bothers you enough, that person is you. Something can always be done. You can make a difference. And if it doesn't matter enough for you to get involved, then stop complaining about it.
12. What if you gave yourself permission to live your life, and you gave other people permission to think whatever they want about you? What if you pour your time and energy into your hobbies, your habits, your happiness?
13. Start living your life in a way that makes you proud of yourself. When you operate in this way, it doesn't matter what other people think. They're going to be mad that you left early. They're going to be mad that you arrived late. Someone is always going to be disappointed by the decisions that you make. Don't ever let it be you that's disappointed. And don't let guilt drive your decisions.
14. People can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves.
15. As long as you let other people's emotional immaturity dictate your choices, you'll always come last in your own life.
16. Instead of expecting other people to change, demand the change of yourself. Hold yourself to a higher standard and stop allowing this type of emotionally immature behavior to be your responsibility to manage.
17. You can always choose what you think, say, or do in response to other people, the world around you, or the emotions that are rising up inside of you. That's the source of all your power.
18. The longer you wait, the more painful it gets. Choosing not to do what's right for you will do nothing but cause you more pain.
19. Upward comparison is this tendency to measure yourself against people and their attributes that you think are better than yours. Research shows it destroys your self-esteem. You rarely engage in downward comparison, which is looking around and seeing how much better off you are than the majority of people in the world. According to the U.N., one in four people do not have access to clean drinking water. The truth is, if you have running water, electricity, and the time to read this book, you're doing better than most people.
20. Be the one to say hi to whoever is around you. It makes all the difference.
21. Creating friendship is really about the Let Me part. And here are some simple things I did to make myself go first:
1. Compliment people everywhere you go.
2. Be curious.
3. Smile and say hello to anyone and everyone you pass or meet.
4. Do this without expectation.
22. Your relationships create a good life. Good friends make you happier, healthier, and bring your life meaning, and friendships are one of the things you'll cherish as you go through your life.
23. Truth #1: Adults only change when they feel like it. Truth #2: Human beings are wired to move toward what feels good. Truth #3: Every single person on the planet thinks they're the exception.
24. The people that you love only feel safe when they feel in control of their own life.
25. Model the behavior you want to see. What I love about this research is that it's a sneaky way to get someone else to change and believe it was their idea.
26. The most important change in any relationship is the one that you can control: yours. You change how you show up. You stop pressuring the person that you love and become more loving.
27. The Let Them Theory encourages you to accept others, focus on your own growth, and inspire change through positive influence instead of pressure.
28. How can I create an environment that makes change and getting better easier?
29. A real conversation only destroys something that is fake.
30. You don't need anyone else's permission to be happy, to pursue your passions, express yourself more, or to live the life you've always dreamed of. The only permission you need is your own. You've spent enough time waiting for others to give you what you crave--whether it's love, acceptance, or approval. But the truth is, everything you're looking for starts with you.
31. Ask yourself, and I mean really ask yourself: If all the energy and time you spent resisting reality--wanting lines to move faster, wanting people to text you back, wanting your boss to recognize your worth, wanting more friends, wanting people to like you, wanting your family to support your career change--if all those thoughts, feelings, and precious moments in your day were put toward something that truly mattered to you, where would you be? Who would you be? What would you have achieved?
32. The most important part of the Let Them Theory is understanding that you are responsible for your own happiness. You are responsible for the energy you bring and how you show up. You are responsible for waking up every day and doing the work to make progress on what matters. You are responsible for defining what matters to you. You are responsible for telling the truth even when it's really hard. You are responsible for paying for your life. Nobody owes you anything, but you owe yourself everything.

Notes & Quotes: The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom

The following are my favorites quotes from Sahil Bloom's The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life:

1. The arrival fallacy is the false assumption that reaching some achievement or goal will create durable feelings of satisfaction and contentment in our lives. We incorrectly assume that we will finally experience the sensation of having arrived when we reach whatever we have propped up as our destination.
2. The greatest discoveries in life come not from finding the right answers but from asking the right questions.
3. Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough.
4. The Five Types of Wealth:
1. Time wealth - the freedom to choose how to spend your time, whom to spend it with, where to spend it, and when to trade it for something else.
2. Social wealth - the connection to others in your personal and professional worlds--the depth and breadth of your connection to those around you.
3. Mental wealth - the connection to a higher-order purpose and meaning that provides motivation and guides your short- and long-term decision making.
4. Physical wealth - your health, fitness, and vitality.
5. Financial wealth - financial assets minus financial liabilities with an added nuance. Your liabilities include your expectations of what you need, your definition of enough.
5. Your Life Razor is a single statement that will define your presence in the current season of life. A powerful Life Razor has three core characteristics. It is:
1. Controllable - it should be within your direct control. 
2. Ripple-creating - it should have positive second-order effects in other areas of life. 
3. Identity-defining - it should be indicative of the type of person you are, the way your ideal self shows up in the world.
6. Systems are the daily actions that create forward progress. Leverage amplifies the output of a single unit of input. Combining the two ideas, high-leverage systems are the daily actions that create amplified, asymmetric forward progress.
7. Here are six key lessons for life:
1. Family time is finite--cherish it.
2. Children time is precious--be present.
3. Friend time is limited--prioritize the real friends.
4. Partner time is meaningful--never settle.
5. Coworker time is significant--find energy.
6. Alone time is abundant--love yourself.
8. You have more time than your ancestors but less control over how you spend it. You have more time, but somehow you have less time for the things that truly matter to you.
9. The three core pillars of Time Wealth:
1. Awareness - an understanding of the finite, impermanent nature of time.
2. Attention - the ability to direct your attention and focus on the things that matter (and ignore the rest).
3. Control - the freedom to own your time and choose exactly how to spend it.
10. In his On the Shortness of Life, Seneca wrote, "We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful for it."
11. Attention is defined as the state or act of applying the mind to something. This application of mental energy is how we create progress. Your choice of how and when to deploy your limited attention determines the quality of your outcomes.
12. The freedom to allocate time according to your preferences--to choose how you spend it, where you spend it, and whom you spend it with--is the ultimate goal. This is the desired end state of true control over your time.
13. Create more time with those you love most.
14. When you establish long fixed hours to do your work, you find unproductive ways to fill it--you work longer but get less done. The better way, to paraphrase entrepreneur Naval Ravikant, is to work like a lion: Sprint, rest, repeat.
15. Use stakes to gamify big projects. It can be very effective.
16. The only thing that matters at all is the quality of the relationships with the people we love.
17. Social wealth is built upon this foundation of depth--upon the strength of your ties to these few, cherished relationships. It is expanded through breadth--connection to extended circles of friends, communities, and cultures. Finally, it is secured through earned status, a durable form of social positioning that cannot be bought.
18. Human connection is ultimately what provides the lasting texture and meaning in life. Without Social Wealth, achievement across any other arena will feel unfulfilling, even bland.
19. The single greatest predictor of physical health at age eighty was relationship satisfaction at age fifty.
20. Proximity to people you love is worth more than any job will ever pay you.
21. When someone you love comes to you with a problem, ask, "Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?"
1. Helped - deconstruct the problem and identify potential solutions. The fix-it mentality can come out to play.
2. Heard - listen intently and allow the other person to express (and vent) as needed. 
3. Hugged - provide comforting physical touch. Touch is a powerful love language for many. Sometimes people just want to feel your presence with them.
22. Curiosity is the foundation of a life of Mental Wealth.
23. A life of Mental Wealth is a life of victory in the fight against equilibrium; it is a life that pays the price for its distinctiveness from its surroundings and reaps the immense rewards held therein.
24. Eight thinking prompts I have found particularly useful:
1. If I repeated my current typical day for one hundred days, would my life be better or worse?
2. If people observed my actions for a week, what would they say my priorities are?
3. If I were the main character in a movie of my life, what would the audience be screaming at me to do right now?
4. Am I hunting antelope (big important problems) or field mice (small urgent problems)?
5. How can I do less but better?
6. What are my strongest beliefs? What would it take for me to change my mind on them?
7. What are a few things I know now that I wish I'd known five years ago? 
8. What actions did I engage in five years ago that I cringe at today? What actions am I engaged in today that I might cringe at in five years?
25. The 1-1-1 method. Every single evening, at the end of your day, open your journal and write down three simple points: One win from the day. One point of tension, anxiety, or stress. One point of gratitude.
26. Every single day that you delay is a missed opportunity that you'll never get back.
27. The first hour of your morning sets the tone for the entire day ahead.
28. Those who are willing to live below their means in their early years are highly likely to reap the rewards in the future.
29. Never think twice about investments in yourself:
1. Books, courses, and education
2. Fitness
3. Networking events
4. Quality food
5. Mental health
6. Personal development
7. Sleep

Notes & Quotes: The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder

The following are my favorite quotes from Steve Leder's The Beauty of What Remains: How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Gift:

1. This very simple insight, that most of us tend to face death the same way we faced life, is mind-blowing for a lot of people when they first hear it. It changes the context of death from something foreign and filled with wishful thinking to something familiar that both the living and the dying have lived and understood for many years.
2. Here is perhaps the toughest and yet most liberating truth about the fact that people die the way they live. If you have had a hopelessly toxic relationship with someone, even someone as close as a parent or a sibling--a relationship fraught with feelings of guilt, remorse, anger, and disappointment--you do not need to try to repair it before that person dies. You simply need to accept it.
3. In order to make sure you can die the way you lived, meaning in control of your own destiny and according to your own values, you must appoint someone who can speak for you if and when you can no longer speak for yourself. Choose uncompromising advocates who will never let you down. Most people say they want to die at home, but 80 percent of Americans die somewhere other than their homes. Saying you want to die at home is not the same as having a plan.
4. Meet with your minister, imam, rabbi, or whoever you want to conduct your funeral service. Talk to her or to him about who you want to eulogize you, what things you want to be certain are said and done, what you want to be sure is not said or done, who you want to carry your casket, what music you want played, and everything else you can think of to have peace and mind about the service.
5. Use the fact that you will almost surely not die from a sudden event but rather from a slow decline as an opportunity; use that time and those years of accrued wisdom to take control over your own death. Make it a final, beautiful example of your life.
6. When I am called into the ER or the ICU or the nursing home or the bedroom of a dying person by his or her family, in the midst of the sadness, the stress, and the chaos, I ask a single, simple question to cut through the emotional clutter: "Is what you are thinking of doing prior to prolong his life or prolong his death?" It is loving to prolong life, to give someone a chance to live and love and laugh again. But it is cruel to prolong death.
7. When death is unforeseen and tragic, it is excruciatingly painful for those who mourn. But for the dead, it is a death like all others--perfect sleep. The deepest peace.
8. Until little more than a century ago most people died at home. Their bodies were washed and prepared for burial by people who loved them. This business of being transported after death quickly away from the living and then chemically altered to seem somehow less dead has made it more difficult, not less, for mourners to embrace the reality of death.
9. Time, life, and we are finite. We really are only human. We can each do only so much, control only so much, and at some point we have to let go, trust, live. To be at peace with our helplessness is the most terrible and liberating of lessons.
10. What have I learned from so much death? Simply this: to live and love fully while I am alive.
11. We too, we mere humans, must also actively remember our loved ones, or they too will surely die not once, as all things must, but a second, more permanent death.
12. People do not really die when the heart stops beating. As long as their lives, their values, the melody to which they lived and danced continue to play in the memories of loved ones and through their effects on the world, they live on.
13. The happiest people are those who know they are living lives that have meaning beyond themselves. If you want to feel fulfilled--really, truly fulfilled--then live beyond your own life. Live as a good ancestor to those you will never know. We are at our best when we know for certain that we have transcended our own brief and beautiful time on earth. That is the essence of being fully human. That is the essence of what it means to lead a meaningful life.
14. The older I become and the more distanced from my father's life and death, the more I realize how incumbent it is upon us all to make the legacy we inherit more beautiful and more authentically our own, not only by living as our loved ones lived in their finest moments, but also by choosing what not to carry forth from their worst.

Notes & Quotes: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

The following are my favorite quotes from Adam Grant's Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things:

1. It's often said that where there's a will, there's a way. What we overlook is that when people can't see a path, they stop dreaming of the destination.
2. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you've reached, but how far you've climbed to get there.
3. Character is often confused with personality, but they're not the same. Personality is your predisposition--your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.
4. Procrastination is a common problem whenever you're pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
5. You can't be ready for anything if you haven't trained for everything.
6. It's easy for people to be critics or cheerleaders. It's harder to get them to be coaches. A critic sees your weaknesses and attacks your worst self. A cheerleader sees your strengths and celebrates your best self. A coach sees your potential and helps you become a better version of yourself.
7. Being a sponge is not only a proactive skill--it's a prosocial skill. Done right, it's not just about soaking up nutrients that help us grow. It's also about releasing nutrients to help others grow.
8. In their quest for flawless results, research suggests that perfectionists tend to get three things wrong.
1. They obsess about details that don't matter.
2. They avoid unfamiliar situations and difficult tasks that might lead to failure.
3. They berate themselves for making mistakes, which makes it harder to learn from them.
9. Before releasing something into the world, it's worth turning to one final judge: you. If this was the only work people saw of yours, would you be proud of it?
10. The best way to unlock hidden potential isn't to suffer through the daily grind. It's to transform the daily grind into a source of daily joy.
11. By fueling harmonious passion, deliberate play can prevent boreout and burnout.
12. The person you're competing with is your past self, and the bar you're raising is for your future self. You're not aiming for perfect--you're shooting for better. The only way to win is to grow.
13. Of all the factors that have been studied, the strongest known force in daily motivation is a sense of progress.
14. What looks like a big breakthrough is usually the accumulation of small wins.
15. We should listen to the advice we give to others--it's usually the advice we need to take for ourselves.
16. It's more important to be good ancestors than dutiful descendants. Too many people spend their lives being custodians of the past instead of stewards of the future. We worry about making our parents proud when we should be focused on making our children proud. The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors--it's to improve conditions for our successors.
17. Extensive evidence shows that the wellspring of intrinsic motivation is having the freedom of opportunity to explore our interests.
18. Research shows that groups promote the people who command the most airtime--regardless of their aptitude and expertise. We mistake confidence for competence, certainty for credibility, and quantity for quality. We get stuck following people who dominate the discussion instead of those who elevate it.
19. Weak leaders silence voice and shoot the messenger. Strong leaders welcome voice and thank the messenger. Great leaders build systems to amplify voice and elevate the messenger.
20. Extensive evidence has identified a social class achievement gap: first generation college students tend to underperform academically due to a series of invisible disadvantages. The expectation to pave their own paths discourages them from seeking help. The pressure to pay their own way, the presence of self-doubt, and the absence of belonging all interfere with their ability to focus.
21. Imposter syndrome says, "I don't know what I'm doing. It's only a matter of time until everyone finds out." Growth mindset says, "I don't what what I'm doing yet. It's only a matter of time until I figure it out."
22. The most meaningful growth is not building our careers--it's building our character.
23. Success is more than reaching our goals--it's living our values. There's no higher value than aspiring to be better tomorrow than we are today. There's no greater accomplishment than unleashing our hidden potential.

Notes & Quotes: HumanKind by Brad Aronson

The following are my favorite quotes from Brad Aronson's HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time.

1. The heroes in HumanKind don't command an army of helpers or have an abundance of free time. They're everyday people who focus on what they can do to make a difference. Their acts of kindness change lives and even save them. These everyday heroes don't just hope the world will get better--they make it better.
2. Yes, it can be paralyzing to thing about the level of need out there, but if we do what we can, that will be enough. No expression of love is wasted, and even the smallest gestures tend to go much further than we think they will.
3. You never know which "drop in the bucket" will spark a movement, and you don't want to cheat the world out of that. But it's important to act regardless of the scope of the outcome. Even if an act of kindness helps just a single person for a single day, that's a gift.
4. Life is a series of single days. If we make up our minds to help each other through these days, before we know it we'll be getting by. Of the many forms that love takes, maybe the most obvious one is a simple decision: a decision to put in the effort to make someone's life easier or more rewarding, even if just for a day. A commitment to doing more than hoping for the best for each other.
5. Here are a few takeaway ideas that have helped me to become a better person and made me more likely to make a difference through my daily interactions:
1. Be aware.
2. Make better decisions.
3. Make people believe you can levitate a table.
4. Tell the truth.
5. Wave.
6. Be sensitive to limitations.
6. People talk about big birthday surprises and breathtaking holiday gifts, but give me the little things in life. To me, it's the everyday details that matter. The little things are the big things. When we realize this, we also realize that there are infinite ways to help others.
7. If something doesn't sound like a big deal, think again. Take a moment to consider that it might be a big deal after all--and to remember that we need to get past drop-in-the-bucket thinking if we're going to see all the opportunities out there for what they are.
8. Everyone wants to be heard, but it's rare that we're fully heard. Here's a way to truly listen: Wait three to five seconds to see if someone is finished speaking before you respond. Waiting those few seconds is hard, but it will completely change how you listen and eliminate unintentional interruptions. It's a gift you can give to anyone, and it literally only costs seconds.
9. In most cases, it's good to avoid giving advice unless you're asked. When you're giving advise, you're not spending that time listening to how the other person feels.
10. Instead of saying, "Can I visit an see if I can help with anything?" I can say, "Can I come see you?" Instead of "Do you need me to come to the hospital with you?" I can say, "Can I come to the hospital with you?" Sometimes it's hard to accept help, but we can make it easier by not calling it that.
11. There's no lack of opportunity for any of us to do good in the world. And there's no lack of incentive. When we improve others' lives, we raise the quality of life for the whole community.
12. Why not think bigger than our daily routines and crossing items off our to-do lists? Each of us has the power to "be awesome" every day. If you say to yourself, "I'm going to make someone's world better today," it will happen. All it takes is looking for opportunity, following through and that resource we all have within us: love.

Notes & Quotes: Nobody Is Coming to Save You by Lt. Col. Scott Mann

The following are my favorite quotes from Lt. Col. Scott Mann's Nobody Is Coming to Save You: A Green Beret's Guide to Getting Big Sh*t Done.

1. Ultimately, this is how we get big shit done: by being able to relate to the pain of others, and by being more relevant to their goals.
2. Humans are ancient creatures who seek Meaning, are primarily Emotional, are definitely Social, and are all Storytellers who constantly Struggle.
3. True leaders serve not only the people around them, but also the people who come long after they're gone.
4. If you're already working on a legacy, then you'll know. But if you aren't, as is more likely the case, don't fret. Grab a pen and some paper, find a quiet place, and write for seven minutes about the legacy you'd like to leave. A hidden gem will reveal itself, even if it's barely twinkling.
5. Clean your side of the street. In all likelihood, and I mean nobody, is going to make you get clear. That's your personal responsibility.
6. My dad always said, "If you want to get back to human nature, get back to nature."
7. There is a spiritual component to getting outside. The natural world has the power to shatter our fear-based, trance state and restore our sense of meaning and our connections, not just between ourselves and our environment, but between one another. We must give these actions the intentional respect they deserve.
8. According to the psychiatrist and educator Ivan Tyrrell, "Movement and meaning are inextricably linked." In fact, he says, "A truly spiritual person is not a hermit sitting on a mountain contemplating his navel, but someone involved in the world, working, serving others and opposing tyranny of all kinds."
9. Making a human connection and gaining initial rapport is essential before commencing with your agenda. Asking thoughtful, open-ended questions that allow the other party to respond in narrative. Striving to see the pictures in their head that drive their goals and illuminate their pain. Engaging with an intention of pure curiosity and discovery. Preparing your body through breathwork for being relatable and relevant before the next tense presentation to your boss begins. These simple moves exponentially reduce the emotional temperature in the room.
10. Logic doesn't move people. Emotions do.
11. The secret to a successful interaction, no matter if it's with a total stranger or the president of the United States, is to show up with an intention 100 percent built around discovery.
12. Stories provide meaning, context, emotional connection, and are remembered for a long time.
13. Beware of the desire to prejudge of self-edit your story when bringing it into the world. Stay the course. Fight for it. It literally has the potential to change someone's life--including your own.
14. There is another universal lesson for storytelling that you can take from these rough places: It's not always the stories we tell that change hearts and minds...It's the stories we ask to hear.
15. "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." Joseph Campbell
16. The leaders I found to be the most authentic and worthy of personal sacrifice were those who were willing to admit when they had gaps in knowledge or needed advice.

Notes & Quotes: The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann

The following are my favorite quotes from Bob Burg and John David Mann's The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea.

1. Ultimately, the world treats you more or less the way you expect to be treated.
2. Appearances can be deceiving. Truth is, they nearly always are.
3. The Golden Rule of Business. All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust.
4. Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
5. You give, give, give. Why? Because you love to. It's not a strategy, it's a way of life. And when you do, then very, very profitable things begin to happen.
6. Your compensation is directly proportional to how many lives you touch.
7. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Everybody can be great because anybody can serve."
8. Sometimes you feel foolish, even look foolish, but you do the thing anyway.
9. Survive, save, and serve. They are the three universal reasons for working. Survive--to meet your basic living needs. Save--to go beyond your basic needs and expand your life. And serve--to make a contribution to the world around you.
10. Always look for the solution where you both come out ahead.
11. When you base your relationships--in business or anywhere else in your life--on who owes you what, that's not being a friend. That's being a creditor.
12. If you place the other person's interests first, your interests will always be taken care of. Always. Some people call it enlightened self-interest. Watch out for what other people need, with the faith that when you do, you'll get what you need.
13. Givers attract.
14. Remember this: no matter what your training, no matter what your skills, no matter what area you're in, you are your most important commodity. The most valuable gift you have to offer is you.
15. The Five Laws:
1. The Law of Value. Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
2. The Law of Compensation. Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.
3. The Law of Influence. Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first.
4. The Law of Authenticity. The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.
5. The Law of Receptivity. The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

Notes & Quotes: The In-Between by Hadley Vlahos R.N.

The following are my favorite quotes from Hadley Vlahos's (R.N) The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments.

1. I made a note to myself that if I were in a position like this in the future, I would instead explain what I going to do and why, and assure the patient that I would finish as quickly as possible.
2. I reminded myself to live for today, not the fears of tomorrow--a promise I had made to myself when I started working in hospice.
3. The voice of one of my favorite nursing school instructors popped into my head: Meet them where they are.
4. "The surge of energy almost everyone gets before dying," he said, as if this was a well-known medical fact. I now know that the surge is a common occurrence. Often, loved ones who witness it think that the patient is somehow miraculously in the process of recovering. But to those in the know, it's a sign that death is imminent and will likely occur within the next few days.
5. Maybe sometimes people didn't need more--maybe, sometimes, they needed...less. Maybe sometimes all they needed was a bit of comfort.
6. I started thinking differently about patient care. I started to reframe my work with the understanding that something doing "nothing" (as I would have thought of it in nursing school and my previous jobs) was doing something. It was being there, offering comfort and solidarity--and that mattered. A lot.
7. While I was never trained for it in nursing school, I knew that watering Sue's plants, making her sandwiches, helping her use the internet, and mailing letters for her were just as important as any other work I've done.
8. When the time comes, we all want the same things: care, comfort, and connection.
9. I am continually amazed at how life just continues on as usual, despite the tragedy that exists all around us.
10. One of the more stunning and beautiful things I've witnessed as a hospice nurse is the way in which people choose their time of death. So many of us can't choose when we go to sleep at night, and yet we seem to have some control over when we die. I've had some patients intent on dying alone, stealing away in the matter of seconds they're left to themselves while a loved one goes to the bathroom, and others, like Sandra, who hang on until the moment when a loved one reaches their side.
11. Professor Lopez was one of those people who really saw me, who believed in my worth, and who made a difference. It's amazing how even those people who are in our life for just a short time can make a lasting impact.
12. Although it's hard to explain, this shift is one that every hospice nurse and person who has witnessed a death has experienced--the tangible shift in the air in that moment when a person leaves their body. It's not unlike when you walk into a room expecting someone to be there, only to discover you're alone. Sometimes that shift is more pronounced than others, and sometimes this moment occurs before their physical death, while other times it's after.
13. I'm often asked what I believe in. As you've read, it's been a journey. I have cared for enough end-of-life patients with varying religious backgrounds to believe that how you live your life is more important than what you believe in.

Notes & Quotes: Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life by Bob Proctor

The following are my favorite quotes from Bob Proctor's Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life:

1. A paradigm is a mental program situated in your subconscious that has almost exclusive control over all your habitual behavior--and almost all of your behavior is habitual.
2. There's no point in telling people to do something if you're not doing it yourself.
3. When you read a good book through the second time, you don't see something in that book that wasn't there before; you see something in yourself that wasn't there before.
4. So it is with the subconscious mind. Whatever you plant will grow. Like the earth, the subconscious doesn't determine good or bad; it just accepts and grows it.
5. The only prerequisite when you're making a decision is, do you want to?
6. We have to paint the picture of the good that we desire and write it down. When you have created an image in your conscious mind, you impress it on the subconscious mind through repetition, and you let yourself feel it. It's got to be real.
7. There's a basic law of life that says, create or disintegrate. If you're not going ahead, you're going backwards. When you violate the law, that's the sin. You go backwards, you're working against it; you're trying to force things. When you're working with the law, you go ahead. When you're doing it right, everything flows beautifully. If you have to really struggle, you're probably going against the law.
8. Science-fiction author Robert A Heinlein once observed, "In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until we ultimately become enslaved by it."
9. People that are continually studying are going to be happy, healthy, and wealthy. Actually, there is no such thing as a learned person. You're either learning or you're not.
10. What you think of yourself is very important. What other people think of you is not important.
11. Earl Nightingale's definition of success is the best I've ever heard: "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal." An ideal is an idea that you've fallen in love with. You are progressively becoming aware as you're moving towards the good you desire.
12. The basic law of life is, create or disintegrate. If you're working toward a predetermined goal, you're creating; you're doing what God meant you to do.
13. Results are nothing but the manifestation of your actions.
14. If you have not found your purpose, I would recommend setting aside ten to fifteen minutes every morning. Put a pen and pad someplace where you can sit quietly. If you drink coffee, make yourself a cup, go to your spot, sit there, and ask, "What do I love doing?"
15. The income you earn is in direct ratio to the need for what you do, your ability to do it, and the difficulty of replacing you. There's got to be a tremendous need for what you're doing, so you're going to get really good at it, and you're going to be really difficult to replace.
16. When you're reacting, everything outside of you is in control of you; you're not in control of yourself at all.
17. Here are some basic, simple rules: if you follow them, you win; if you violate them, you lose. There are three things that a person absolutely must lock into if the really want to set a higher goal and go after it. The first is decision. The second is understanding visualization, and the third is discipline.
18. Take responsibility for how you feel and act. Energy is flowing through us, and it's up to us to direct it in any way we want.
19. I take what I do and work to get better at it every day. Get better at what you're good at, manage what you're not good at, and be accountable to someone. Make sure that when you say you're going to do something, it's going to get done.
20. Comfort is not a good place to be. If you're really comfortable with everything in your life, you're stuck, you're going sideways, you're not growing at all. You've got to be doing something that causes a respectable amount of discomfort and keep doing it until you're comfortable with it. When you are, then set another target that causes discomfort. That discomfort indicates that you're growing; you're going where you've never been.
21. Harvest the good. There's good in everything. The more you look for, the more you'll find.
22. You are the only problem you will ever have, and you are the only solution. When you understand that, you'll start to see the value in sitting down and becoming grateful every day when you're having a bit of a problem. It's such a phenomenal attitude, and it changes your life.
23. It's up to us to recognize what beliefs we are operating with that are false and get rid of them. That's really the trick of life.
24. I'm of the opinion that if you're struggling, you're doing it wrong. If you're working in harmony with the law, it's going to be a free flow.
25. Money is not going to make you a better person, but it will make you more of what you already are. If you're not a nice person, you're going to become despicable. If you are a nice person, you will become much nicer. Money's a magnifier. There's no limit to what you can earn, but to earn it, you have to provide service. That doesn't mean you have to work, but you have to provide service.
26. Never let anybody decide what you're going to earn. That's something you've got to decide. If you're letting somebody else decide, and you're not happy with it, you know what you have to do: you have to get out of there and go out on your own.
27. Anyone who wants anything they haven't got should write down what they want in the present tense. It doesn't matter if they think it's silly. They should start reading it and speaking it out loud over and over again. Something will start to happen first in their mind, and then in the outside world--inside out.
28. When you sit down and think of what you want, you let your imagination go. If you can see it, write it down. Don't talk to anybody else, but me about it. Because everybody else will laugh at you, and you don't need that happening. Don't mix with people who haven't got big goals.
29. Eight Principles for Living:
1. Develop an awareness of your infinite potential.
2. Act on what you want.
3. Make a decision.
4. Total commitment.
5. Accountability.
6. Focus.
7. Discipline.
8. Visioneering.
30. Earl Nightingale used to say that if you do something for ninety days, you'll probably do it for the rest of your life.

Notes & Quotes: Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

The following are my favorite quotes from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans's Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life.

1. A well-designed life is a life that is generative--it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always a possibility of surprise.
2. Designers love questions, but what they really love is reframing questions.
3. Your life is not a thing, it's an experience; the fun comes from designing and enjoying the experience.
4. The reframe for the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is this: "Who or what do you want to grow into?"
5. Radical collaboration works on the principle that people with very different backgrounds will bring their idiosyncratic technical and human experiences to the team. This increases the chance that the team will have empathy for those who will use what they are designing, and that the collision of different backgrounds will generate truly unique solutions.
6. A well-designed life is not a life of drudgery. You weren't put on this earth to work eight hours a day at a job you hate until the time comes to die.
7. The five mind-sets you are going to learn in order to design your life are curiosity, bias to action, reframing, awareness, and radical collaboration. These are you design tools, and with them you can build anything, including a life you love.
8. Life design is a journey; let go of the end goal and focus on the process and see what happens next. 
9. Passion is the result of good life design, not the cause.
10. Problem Finding + Problem Sovling = Well-Designed Life.
11. Our problems become our story, and we can all get stuck in our stories.
12. In life design, if it's not actionable, it's not a problem.
13. Here's a little tidbit that is going to save you a lot of time--months, years, decades even. It has to do with reality. People fight reality. They fight it tooth and nail, with everything they've got. And anytime you are arguing or fighting with reality, reality will win. You can't outsmart it. You can't trick it. You can't bend it to your will. Not now. Not ever.
14. If you're beginning to think like a designer, you will recognize that life is never done. Work is never done. Play is never done. Love and health are never done. We are only done designing our lives when we die.
15. Our goal for your life is rather simple: coherency. A coherent life is one lived in such a way that you can clearly connect the dots between three things: Who you are. What you believe. What you are doing.
16. Living coherently doesn't mean everything is in perfect order all the time. It simply means you are living in alignment with your values and have not sacrificed your integrity along the way.
17. People in flow report the experience as having these sorts of attributes: Experiencing complete involvement in the activity. Feeling a sense of ecstasy or euphoria. Having great inner clarity--knowing just what to do and how to do it. Being totally calm and at peace. Feeling as if time were standing still--or disappearing in an instant.
18. Life design is about getting more out of your current life--and not only about redesigning a whole new life.
19. Drill down into the particulars of your day and catch yourself in the act of having a good time.
20. As a life designer, you need to embrace two philosophies:
1. You choose better when you have lots of good ideas to choose from.
2. You never choose your first solution to any problem.
21. Don't make a doable problem into an anchor problem by wedding yourself irretrievably to a solution that just isn't working. Reframe the solution to some other possibilities, prototype those ideas (take some test hikes), and get yourself unstuck. Anchor problems keep us stuck because we can only see one solution--the one we already have that doesn't work.
22. If your mind starts with multiple ideas in parallel, it is not prematurely committed to one path and stays more open and able to receive and conceive more novel innovations. Designers have known this all along--you don't want to start with just one idea, or you're likely to get stuck with it.
23. Life is an odyssey--and adventurous journey into the future with hopes and goals, helpers, lovers and antagonists, unknowns and serendipities, all unfolding over time in a way we both intend at the start and weave together as we go.
24. We prototype to ask good questions, create experiences, reveal our assumptions, fail fast, fail forward, sneak up on the future, and build empathy for ourselves and others. Once you accept that this is really the only way to get the data you need, prototyping becomes an integral part of your life design process.
25. The Rules of Brainstorming
1. Go for quantity, not quality.
2. Defer judgment and do not censor ideas.
3. Build off the ideas of others.
4. Encourage wild ideas.
26. When you really get the hang of the design thinking approach, you end up thinking differently about everything.
27. Designing your life is actually what life is, because life is a process, not an outcome. If you can get that, you've got it all.
28. Everyone participating in your life design effort in one way or another should be thought of as being a part of your team, but there are different roles to be played, and it's useful to name them.
1. Supporters
2. Players
3. Intimates
4. The Team
29. What does a well-designed and balanced life look like? Imagine a day cut into perfectly equal pieces of pie--one slice for career, one slice for play and fun, one slice for family and friends, one slice for health. What is your perfect pie?

Notes & Quotes: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

The following are my favorite quotes from John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet.

1. My brother, Hank, who started out his professional life as a biochemist, once explained it to me like this: As a person, he told me, your biggest problem is other people. You are vulnerable to people, and reliant upon them. But imagine instead that you are a twenty-first-century river, or desert, or polar bear. Your biggest problem is still people. You are still vulnerable to them, and reliant upon them.
2. I reread the work of my friend and mentor Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who'd died a few months earlier. She'd once written, "For anyone trying to discern what to do with their life: Pay attention to what you pay attention to. That's pretty much all the info you need."
3. I'm reminded of something my religion professor Donald Rogan told me once: "Never predict the end of the world. You're almost certain to be wrong, and if you're right, no one will be around to congratulate you."
4. With a song like a dying balloon and a penchant for attacking humans, the Canada goose is hard to love. But then again, so are most of us.
5. Like most other energy-intensive innovations, AC primarily benefits people in rich communities, while the consequences of climate change are borne disproportionately by people in impoverished communities.
6. After the journalist Taylor Lorenz tweeted that office air-conditioning systems are sexist, a blog in the Atlantic wrote, "To think the temperature in a building is sexist is absurd." But it's not absurd. What's absurd is reducing workplace productivity by using precious fossil fuels to excessively cool an office building so that men wearing ornamental jackets will feel more comfortable.
7. When you have the microphone, what you say matters, even when you're just kidding. It's so easy to take refuge in the "just" of just kidding. It's just a joke. We're just doing it for the memes. But the preposterous and absurd can still shape our understanding of ourselves and one another. And ridiculous cruelty is still cruel.
8. We live in hope--that life will get better, and more importantly that it will go on, that love will survive even though we will not. And between now and then, we are here because we're here because we're here because we're here.
9. Kurt Vonnegut wrote that one of the flaws in the human character "is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."
10. More land more water are devoted to the cultivation of lawn grass in the United States than to corn and wheat combined.
11. As the legendary driver Mario Andretti put it, "if everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
12. Tradition is a way of being with people, not just the people you're observing the traditions with now, but also all those who've ever observed them.
13. One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can't ever quite get rid of.
14. On the other side of monotony lies a flow state, a way of being that is just being, a present tense that actually feels present.
15. When I was a kid, I thought being a parent meant knowing what to say and how to say it. But I have no idea what to say or how to say it. All I can do is shut up and listen. Otherwise, you miss all the good stuff.
16. Cholera continues to spread and kill not because we lack the tools to understand or treat the disease as we did two hundred years ago, but because each day, as a human community, we decide not to prioritize the health of people living in poverty.
17. Almost everything turns out to be interesting if you pay the right kind of attention to it.
18. I've spent so much of my life wondering why I am here, feeling this ache behind my solar plexus that my life isn't for anything, that it doesn't mean anything, that the hurt hurts too much and the joy gives too little. But in the shade of the gingko tree, I'm able to feel, if only in moments, why I am here--that I am here to pay attention. I am here to love and to be loved, and to know and to not know.

Notes & Quotes: Gambler by Billy Walters

The following are my favorite quotes from Billy Walters's Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk:

1. My philosophy on life is simple: You come into this world with nothing, and you leave with nothing. So seize every opportunity to leave a legacy that might inspire others to make the most of their time on earth. At the end of the day, there are two people you can't bullshit--yourself and your maker. You will be judged by the way you've lived and by whether you've followed your servant's heart.
2. I had no battle plan, other than a determination to prove my worth to anyone who figured me a failure based on my clothes or country accent. My answer to the doubters and bullies was to get up every morning, throw the blinders on, and charge like Billy the bull. Head down, horns up, taking on the world, willing to go as hard and as far as needed to defend my dignity.
3. Gambling was simply a way of life in Kentucky. My friends bet on a daily basis as naturally as they ate supper. We played cards, shot pool, pitched pennies, shot dice, and wagered on racehorses and sports. Basically, we'd bet on anything that moved. We never gave a thought to gambling being immoral or illegal.
4. I learned early on that the auto business was different from factory work because of all the downtime. The secret to success in car sales was to stay busy 100 percent of the time. If there weren't potential buyers milling around, the other salesmen would goof off in the office by chewing the fat, playing cards, or reading magazines. I also learned something that would become a hallmark of my business career--the more information you accumulate, the more opportunities you create.
5. When matching up, my game plan was simple: one way or another I needed to get my opponent to agree to higher stakes than he was comfortable playing for. I wanted their ass puckered so tight you couldn't pound a flax seed up it. The tighter they were wound, I figured, the worse they would play.
6. Gamblers do win, and some can win for a period of time. Almost every one of them, however, eventually will lose.
7. You have to hold people accountable in this game. If beards got a sense that you were not atop your game, they would steal from you every chance they could.
8. From a pure financial standpoint, Desert Pines was one of my worst-performing investments. But it still stands as one of my proudest accomplishments.
9. I want to say up front: I'm sharing details about my system. Your model can be what you want it to be. But there are bedrock principles of sports wagering that are important to know regardless of the specific system you use or the size of your wagers.
10. You generally must pay an additional 10 percent to make the bet. So a $100 wager will cost you $110. This is called the "juice" or the "vig", from the Russian/Yiddish word vigorish. Because you have to pay that extra $10, it means you'll need to win 52.38 percent of the time to break even.
11. Being a good handicapper is, of course, essential to being a winning sports bettor.
12. Handicapping alone won't guarantee maximum success. It's only a part of my three-pronged plan; betting strategy and money management also are essential.
13. Ideally, you should not risk any more than 1 to 3 percent of your bankroll on any single bet.
14. Just being one of the guys came naturally to me. That's the way Grandmother raised me. It was "Yes sir" and "No sir" to guards and officials alike. Whatever street cred I earned on the inside was due to keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut. I waited my turn and didn't stand out. At the same time, I never backed down. In the end, I was just another con.
15. Bootstrappers share common traits, among them discipline, focus, and the ability to bounce back from failure.
16. Prison makes that course correction in your life. It puts everything in perspective, reminding you of the many things you otherwise took for granted and the things that actually matter.
17. As it stands today, prisons are breeding grounds for generations of criminals. Fathers and mothers who come out of prison with no hope cannot offer hope to their children. But those who learn trades and support their families are far more likely to raise children who have a greater vision for their lives.

Notes & Quotes: Citizen Outlaw by Charles Barber

The following are my favorite quotes from Charles Barber's Citizen Outlaw: One Man's Journey from Gangleader to Peacekeeper:

1. At age seven, [William] Outlaw so much admired one of the officers, a strapping man who would go on to become New Haven's first African-American police commissioner, that he wanted to become a policeman. But by age ten, Outlaw had seen the behavior of other officers, who took bribes and slept with the single moms, and he grew to hate everything about the New Haven police department.
2. At the heart of his story is an unrelenting paradox. It is a story of doing unremitting damage and then trying to undo that damage, which of course is not actually possible. But these days Outlaw relentlessly spends his hours undertaking the insurmountable task of trying to overturn what has already been done.
3. Even at his young age, Outlaw sensed that his father's rage was somehow misplaced. Sure, Outlaw had done something wrong; sometimes Outlaw himself believed he deserved punishment. But he could feel in his heart that there was no love behind his father's so-called discipline.
4. The framers of the public housing movement made a critical error as they conceived of their master plan: they prohibited tenants from owning their apartments, and therefore residents had little personal investment in the properties in which they lived. The buildings were owned by city authorities and often poorly maintained. The projects were frequently opened with great optimism and fanfare, but then quickly fell apart. And just as often, in creating the new projects, entire neighborhoods--many of them containing handsome historical structures alongside the squalid tenements--were razed. These processes created deep-seated feelings of dislocation and alienation among long-standing residents. In New Haven alone, 20 percent of the population was forced to move out of their homes between 1956 and 1974, all in the name of purported urban renewal and progress.
5. Research shows that gangs thrive in areas of wide income disparity, and Connecticut had among the highest income disparity in the United States.
6. Outlaw perfected this style of business in the gang's first two years, all before his sixteenth birthday. It powered the Jungle Boys into becoming the largest gang in New Haven, and made Outlaw a local celebrity wherever he went.
7. Just as he arrived, an explosive element came along that changed the New Haven--and American--drug scene forever. Cocaine.
8. A few weeks after [Len Bias's] death, both Republicans and Democrats forged the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which fundamentally transformed the law enforcement community's response to drug abuse from a rehabilitative approach to a punitive one. Soon afterward came further legislation, which called for new prisons and mandatory minimum sentences for drug violations. The new laws made punishments related to crack up to a hundredfold higher than for cocaine. Nancy Reagan, who led an anti-drug campaign from the White House, deemed the legislation a personal victory.
9. By the 1960s and 1070s, amid rising crime and high rates of criminal recidivism (nationally, about half of inmates released from prison were incarcerated again within three years), the Bureau of Prisons largely abandoned any interest in rehabilitation, replacing that ideal with the liberal use of solitary confinement and lockdowns.
10. The "Cure Violence" health model, originally developed by Dr. Gary Slutkin of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, identifies three principles employed to combat epidemics of disease and applies them to youth violence: 1. interrupt transmission of the disease; 2. reduce the risk of the highest-risk cases and; 3. change community norms.
11. In 2016, when a New Haven dealer was sent back to prison, he sold his cell phone to another dealer for $30,000. The contacts on his phone amounted to an instant book of business.
12. There was one thing that had not much changed upon Outlaw's return: the homicide rate. Twenty-two murders were perpetrated in New Haven in 2008; 12 in 2009; 23 in 2010, and an astonishing 34 in 2011, numbers that had not been seen since the 1980s. In 2010, not one of the murder victims in New Haven was white. 22 were black, and one was Hispanic. Twenty two of the 23 people killed were male. Between 2003 and 2015, among the 1225 victims of gunshot wounds treated at Yale New Haven Hospital, 84 percent were either black or Hispanic, and 93 percent were male. The statistics mirrored national numbers: black men comprise 6 percent of the United States population but half of all homicide victims. Five thousand black men perish in gunfire annually.

Notes & Quotes: Setting the Table by Danny Meyer

The following are my favorite notes from Danny Meyer's Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business.

1. Within moments of being born, most babies find themselves receiving the first four gifts of life: eye contact, a smile, a hug, and some food. We receive many other gifts in a lifetime, but few can ever surpass those first four.
2. I've learned how crucially important it is to put hospitality to work, first for the people who work for me and subsequently for all the other people and stakeholders who are in any way affected by our business--in descending order, our guests, community, suppliers, and investors. I call this way of setting priorities "enlightened hospitality."
3. You may think, as I once did, that I'm primarily in the business of serving good food. Actually, though, food is secondary to something that matters even more. In the end, what's most meaningful is creating positive, uplifting outcomes for human experiences and human relationships. Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. It's that simple, and it's that hard.
4. My discoveries have also convinced me that there's always someone out there who has figured out how to make something taste just a little bit better. And I am inspired by both the search and the discovery.
5. Hospitality is the foundation of my business philosophy. Virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any business transaction. Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions--for and to--express it all.
6. I was judged not just for the food, but by how well I cleaned the pans and plates, put out the fire, refilled the pit, and--most important--by whether I would be able to "leave the campsite neater than I had found it." (That concept remains, for me, one of the most significant measures of success in business, and in life.)
7. Learning to manage volunteers--to whom, absent a paycheck, ideas and ideals were the only currency--taught me to view all employees essentially as volunteers. Today, even with compensation as a motivator, I know that anyone who works for my company chooses to do so because of what we stand for. I believe that anyone who is qualified for a job in our company is also qualified for many other jobs at the same pay scale. It's up to us to provide solid reasons for our employees to want to work for us, over and beyond their compensation.
8. The beautiful choreography of service is, at its best, an art form, a ballet. I appreciate the grace with which a table can be properly cleared. I admire the elegance with which a bottle of wine can be appropriately opened, decanted, and poured. There's aesthetic value in doing things the right way. But I respond best when the person doing those things realizes that the purpose of all this beauty at the table is to create pleasure for me. To go through the motions in a perfunctory or self-absorbed manner, no matter how expertly rendered, diminishes the beauty. It's about soul--and service without soul, no matter how elegant, is quickly forgotten by the guest.
9. To this day, Union Square Cafe remains the purest expression of me and most clearly represents the mission of all my restaurants: to express excellence in the most inclusive, accessible, genuine, and hospitable way possible.
10. It's human nature for people to take precisely as much interest in you as they believe you're taking in them. There is no stronger way to build relationships than taking a genuine interest in other human beings and allowing them to share their stories. When we take an active interest in the guests at our restaurants, we create a sense of community and a feeling of "shared ownership."
    
11. I urge our managers to ABCD--always be collecting dots. Dots are information. The more information you collect, the more frequently you can make meaningful connections that can make other people feel good and give you an edge in business.
12. I realize that I don't have to do this kind of thing, but there is simply no point for me--or anyone on my staff--to work hard every day for the purpose of offering guests an average experience.
13. Our job is not to impose our own needs on our guests: it's to be aware of their needs and to deliver the goods accordingly. In hospitality, one size fits one!
14. I will throw myself into a new venture only when certain criteria are met: I am passionate about the subject matter (i.e., early American folk antiques, modern art, jazz, barbecue). I know I will derive some combination of challenge, satisfaction, and pleasure from the venture. It presents meaningful opportunities for professional growth for my colleagues and me. The new business will add something to the dialogue in a specific context, such a luxury dining (Gramercy Tavern), museum dining (The Modern, Cafe 2, and Terrace 5 at the Museum of Modern Art), Indian dining (Tabla), barbecue (Blue Smoke), or burgers and frozen custard (Shake Shack). Financial projections indicate the possibility of sufficient profit and returns on our investment to warrant the risk we're undertaking.
15. Know Thyself: Before you go to market, know what you are selling and to whom. It's a very rare business that can (or should) be all things to all people. Be the best you can be within a reasonably tight product focus. That will help you to improve yourself and help your customers to know how and when to buy your product.
16. The company learned to superimpose its blueprint onto thousands of locations north, south, east, and west, while also conveying the sense that each Starbucks belonged to its particular community. It was brilliant entrepreneurship to grasp that selling excellent coffee is secondary to creating a sense of community. Coffee sells (and is habit-forming), but performing a daily ritual with a self-selected group of life-minded human beings also sells. A business that doesn't understand it's raison d'etre as fostering community will inevitably underperform.
17. The only way a company can grow, stay true to its soul, and remain consistently successful is to attract, hire, and keep great people. It's that simple, and it's that hard.
18. We searched high and low for the rare employees who love teaching, know how to set priorities, work with a sense of urgency, and--most important--are comfortable with holding people accountable to high standards while letting them hold onto their own dignity.
19. We don't believe in pursuing the so-called 110 percent employee. That's about as realistic as working achieve the twenty-six-hour day. We are hoping to develop 100 percent employees whose skills are divided 51-49 between emotional hospitality and technical excellence. We refer to these employees as 51 percenters.
20. To me, a 51 percenter has five core emotional skills. I've learned that we need to hire employees with these skills if we're to be champions at the team sport of hospitality. They are: Optimistic warmth (genuine kindness, thoughtfulness, and a sense that the glass is always at least half full). Intelligence (not just "smarts" but rather an insatiable curiosity to learn for the sake of learning). Work ethic (a natural tendency to do something as well as it can possibly be done). Empathy (an awareness of, care for, and connection to how others feel and how your actions make others feel). Self-awareness and integrity (an understanding of what makes you tick and a natural inclination to be accountable for doing the right thing with honesty and superb judgment).
21. When an employee does not work out, the problem more often stems from an attitude of "I won't" rather than "I can't".
22. It's pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly weak candidate. It's the "whelming" candidate you must avoid at all costs, because that's the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave on their own or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you can't get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; they're comortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of getting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired. And because you either can't or don't fire them, you and they conspire to send a dangerous message to your staff and guests that "average" is acceptable.
23. It's critical to be a champion at retaining top staff members. A business owner can too easily squander the winning edge that comes from fielding a great team by not treating its members with respect and trust, teaching them new skills, and offering clear challenges.
24. I learned how critical it is to manage expectations--and to plan for success, not just for failure. Too often, we've made mistakes by not anticipating what the consequences would be if we were to win.
25. Previous success in any field invites high expectations and scrutiny the next time around. People are less forgiving when a winner falters than they are when an up-and-comer stumbles. But a mark of a champion is to welcome scrutiny, persevere, perform beyond expectations, and provide an exceptional product--for which forgiveness is not necessary.
26. I ended the memo by quoting something my late grandfather, Irving Harris, always used to remind me. "People will say a lot of great things about your business, and a lot of nasty things as well. Just remember: you're never as good as the best things they'll say, and never as bad as the negative ones. Just keep centered, know what you stand for, strive for new goals, and always be decent."
27. Three hallmarks of effective leadership are to provide a clear vision for your business so that your employees know where you're taking them; to hold people accountable for consistent standards of excellence; and to communicate a well-defined set of cultural priorities and nonnegotiable values. Perhaps most important, true leaders hold themselves accountable for conducting business in the same manner in which they've asked their team to perform.
28. Wherever your center lies, know it, name it, stick to it, and believe in it. Everyone who works with you will know what matters to you and will respect and appreciate your unwavering values. Your inner beliefs about business will guide you through the tough times. It's good to be open to fresh approaches to solving problems. But, when you cede your core values to someone else, it's time to quit.
29. Ultimately, the most successful business is not the one that eliminates the most problems. It's the one that becomes most expert at finding imaginative solutions to address those problems.
30. Poor communication is generally not a matter of miscommunication. More often, it involves taking away people's feeling of control. Change works only when people believe it is happening for them, not to them. And there's not much in between. Good communication is always a factor of good hospitality.
31. The biggest mistake managers can make is neglecting to set high standards and hold others accountable. This denies employees the chance to learn and excel. Employees do not want to be told, "Let me make your life easier by enabling you not to learn and not to achieve anything new."
32. You can get the best productivity from your employees when they believe that their leadership is open-minded, is accessible, and welcomes input.
33. You cannot be a great leader unless a critical mass of people are attracted to following your lead.
34. A great leader must repeatedly ask himself or herself this tough question: "Why would anyone want to be led by me?" And there had better be a good number of compelling reasons.
35. For some reason, when certain people gain more authority and power, they tend to demand respect from those who work for them. But what got them their promotion in the first place was their natural ability to command respect. Demanding respect creates tension that can make it very tough to lead, and very uncomfortable to follow. 
36. Stanley [Marcus] set his martini down, looked me in the eye, and said, "So you made a mistake. You need to understand something important. And listen to me carefully: The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled."
37. The best companies are those that distinguish themselves by solving problems most effectively.
38. I like to think of our staff members not at servers, but surfers. Surfing is an arduous sport, and no one pursues it involuntarily. No one forces you to become a surfer, but if you choose to do it, there's no point in wasting energy trying to tame the ocean of its waves. Waves are like mistakes. You can count on the fact that there will always be another wave, so your choice is to get back on the surfboard and anticipate it. The degree to which you ride it with better form than the next guy is how you improve and distinguish yourself.
39. The Five A's for Effectively Addressing Mistakes:
1. Awareness
2. Acknowledgement
3. Apology
4. Action
5. Additional generosity
40. There are five primary stakeholders to whom we express our most caring hospitality, and in whom we take the greatest interest. Prioritizing those people in the following order is the guiding principle for practically every decision we make, and it has made the single greatest contribution to the ongoing success of our company. Our employees. Our guests. Our community. Our suppliers. Our investors.
41. Mutual respect and trust are the most powerful tools for building an energetic, motivated, winning team in any field.
42. Hospitality starts with the genuine enjoyment of doing something well for the purpose of bringing pleasure to other people.
43. I have always believed that you can tell as much about a company by the deals it does not make as by those it does. Much of the success we have had has resulted from saying "no, thank you" to opportunities that, while initially compelling, would not have been wise to pursue.
44. The "Yes" Criteria for New Ventures:
1. The opportunity fits and enhances our company's overall strategic goals and objectives.
2. The opportunity represents a chance to create a business venture that is perceived as groundbreaking, trailblazing, and fresh.
3. The timing is right for our company's capacity to grow with excellence, especially in terms of our having enough key employees who are themselves interested and ready to grow.
4. We believe we have the capacity to be category leaders within whatever niche we are pursuing.
5. We believe our existing businesses will benefit and improve by virtue of or notwithstanding our pursuing this new opportunity.
6. We feel excited and passionate about this idea. Pursuing it will be an opportunity to learn, grow, and have fun!
7. We are excited about doing business in this community.
8. The context is the right fit. Our restaurant and our style of doing business will be in harmony with its location.
9. An in-depth pro forma analysis convinces us that it a wise and safe investment.
45. As my company's leader, I have certainly learned to be decisive with an appropriate sense of urgency, but I always prefer to make my decisions after first building consensus among various colleagues, whose unique vantage points give me further confidence to move forward. This process can be lengthy, but so long as the spirit of any decision is consistent with what I'd want, bringing others' views to the table allows us to move forward with a more fully realized plan supported by those who are responsible for its execution. Our decision-making about whether or not to pursue new deals is always sharpest when I call on members of my advisory board to advocate on behalf of their primary role in our company.
46. At about this time, my assistant, Jenny Dirksen (now our director of community investment), shared a priceless expression her grandmother had taught her: One tuchas can't dance at two weddings. It's nice to be invited to a lot of parties. But as much as you may want to attend them all, it's important to acknowledge that you can be in only one place at a time, and do one thing well. My grandfather used to express similar wisdom: Doing two things like a half-wit never equals one thing like a whole wit.

Notes & Quotes: One Blade of Grass by Henry Shukman

The following are my favorite quotes from Henry Shukman's One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir.

1. My gaze fixed on the wall in front of me--a wall of adobe, glowing in the light of a lamp. An intense love for the wall welled up, almost as if I were falling in love with it, and it with me. All of a sudden, with what felt like a seismic jolt, the room seemed to blow wide open, the whole scene became an infinitely broad expanse, and it was as if I was sucked into that expanse myself and became part of it, so that the desert hills outside, which reached down to Gallup, in the valley two miles away, and on beyond, were my very own body.
2. It was true, as the Buddhists said: I was one with the world. I was one with everything. The whole world was my body, my mind. And because of that, I was beloved, I belonged, I was healed in all possible ways. All had been well, secretly well, all along.
3. Speedy didn't have a home, or a kitchen, or a bedroom. He basically just had himself, that was all. That and the land. He was at home anywhere. He was his home.
4. I had thought I wanted to go out and see the world. Instead it was the other way around: the world opened its arms and pulled me in.
5. This is a story not only of awakening but of healing. Perhaps the two can't, or shouldn't, be separated. No healing without a wound. 
6. Help is always at hand. We just may not know where to look for it. 
7. The change of location, the new job, the therapy, the publishers, quitting the PhD: they had all happened once I took up meditation. Was it possible that just sitting still twice a day could bring order to a disordered psychophysiology, and regulate a dysregulated life?
8. I had a diagnosis now: dysthymia. Persistent, low-grade, shame-based depression. It was tricky, because one of the symptoms was a denial of symptoms prompted by shame at they symptoms--the shame itself being one of the symptoms. Cleverly circular.
9. I began to do zazen daily. Over the weeks I grew to love it: a sense of clarity, a watery quality to everything, would come on.
10. How could it be that zazen--just sitting and watching one's breath--allowed all these old feelings to come up and work themselves out? Was it possible that all the human heart really needed was time? Give it time and it would sort itself out? You just had to be patient, allow it its period of grace each day.
11. He told me about the discipline of living as an artist, the need to practice your art every day without fail, how you should get up early each morning to work before you did anything else. You needed to trust your instincts and cultivate wonder.
12. Death unites us, love unites us, and grief unites us.
13. It was suddenly clear that all my life I had been assuming these many stimuli happened to a being called me. They were connected to one another by virtue of happening to me. But there was no thread connecting them. Each arose independently. They were free.
14. Without me, there was no past or future. Every phenomenon that arose was happening for the first and only time, and filled all awareness entirely. That made it an absolute treasure.
15. After any retreat, there was always a sense of having been cleansed, absolved even, and of returning to the world with new eyes.
16. I began to learn from other writers at the college. I had been so much my own man, I hadn't realized there were people willing to help. Perhaps the wisdom of Zen was creeping in bit by bit, touching the way I lived, not guarded but ready to give and receive help. One could feel goodwill toward just about everybody if one wanted.
17. This is part of Zen training. There is the sudden side--the unbidden revelation of the nature of self and world--and the gradual: the soil prepared through long cultivation.
18. I saw that meditation was not just meditation. It was a means, a vessel, a vehicle. Through daily sitting, through going on periodic sesshins at Cold Ash, a retreat center on the Berkshire Downs where three dozen of us would sit with John for a week, it was possible to undergo much more than a calming of the nervous system. In meditation we could pursue the fundamental investigation of a lifetime: the search for our identity.
19. I was slowly beginning to understand that Zen wasn't just about meditative absorption and insight, nor was it something done alone. It was about activity, about how you lived and interacted, how you treated others. It wasn't enough to "be enlightened," whatever that might mean; what counted was living it.
20. If Zen training is a kind of parenting, we are being stripped down more than built up, shown how little we need, not how much.
21. Could anything matter more than the present moment? Somehow that was where life itself was always waiting to meet me, if only I could remember.
22. My existence was a gift, and its unspeakable generosity had been hidden from me, by nothing but a mirage of grasping and aversion, by a basic ignorance that consisted in taking a mirage as real.
23. Zen may undermine false assumptions, but its goal is to help us live more helpfully--not in servitude to an imaginary tyrant called "me," but in the service of others.
24. Nothing matters more than finding that our "real self" is absolutely inclusive. And learning how to live it is the journey of a lifetime.
25. This was what Zen existed for: to bring a human being to a condition that, impossibly, resolved everything. And to pass it on.
26. The further you go in Zen the less you understand. That's how it is. You end up feeling a bit like Socrates, who said he knew only one thing, namely that he knew nothing. Although in Zen you don't even know that.
27. Zen: the only way to keep it is to give it away.
28. In the end it's all a fairy tale. In the end, all Zen saves us from is ourselves. It may be a little inaccurate but not unreasonable to say that in the end, all Zen is is love.
29. To bow to circumstance, not to set oneself up in any way, is crucial if we are to have any chance of receiving the liberative beauty of the teaching and passing it on.
30. Zen is soteriological. It therefore must be conceded to have an agenda of sorts. It seeks in some ways to "save" us, if only by relieving us of the baggage of our assumptions and preconceptions. But it saves us not from malign superhuman forces, nor into the arms of a heavenly being, but simply from ourselves. Its tagline might be: "How to get saved from yourself." It seeks to free us rom a mistaken perspective generated by a misunderstanding about our sense of self: namely, that it's a thing, that me is a fixed entity. On the other hand, it doesn't seek to replace wrong views with right ones. Rather, it seeks to free us of all views.