change

The ego likes big, dramatic actions that seem as if they’ll magically change the future. This gives the ego a sense of power. Real discipline is quite the opposite. It’s made up of an endless number of small steps, each of which can seem meaningless on its own. The ego has to humble itself to keep going on a productive course.

Most of our attempts to become better people, fitter and healthier, more moral/ productive/ organised, and so forth, make this problem worse– because it's basically impossible to pursue any program of personal change without the thought, somewhere in the back of your mind, that successfully completing the change will catapult you into a new and som

One major advantage of springboard stories is that they combat skepticism and create buy-in. Denning says that the idea of telling stories initially violated his intuition. He had always believed in the value of being direct, and he worried that stories were too ambiguous, too peripheral, too anecdotal. He thought, “Why not spell out the message di

But is knowing the truth really enough to activate its life-changing power? Clearly not: everyone knows what’s required to live a healthy life—a good night’s sleep, consistent exercise, and a healthy diet—yet for most people, simply telling themselves that isn’t enough. That’s because even after you know the truth, Part X has a way of neutralizing

You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers—a miracle—transport you to this realm of eternal freedom, which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority. You have listened to me for three yea

The moment we deny ourselves some gratification, we feel deprived. Part X appeals to our selfishness, telling us we should never have to feel deprived.

The only way to fight this is to have an equally selfish reason not to give in to our impulses. In other words, we need to find a reward in depriving ourselves. In the lower-channel, purely material

At the same time, do not expect the mind to change simply because you are identifying less with it. You are not trying to change your mind! That's not possible. You can, however, change your relationship to the thinking mind, and this is great news. Your life will change and the mind will keep running its inflexible, predictable computer program. N

Morning Pages make us more graceful, but that grace is intensely practical. We are nudged to act on our own behalf, and if we balk, we are nudged again. The pages will nag until we are willing to take action. The pages inaugurate change, and they walk us through that change. We do end the bad relationship. We do get sober. We do lose unwanted weigh

The question we asked was, “Our customers want to know: Who is Apple, and what is it that we stand for? Where do we fit in this world?"

And what we're about isn't making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases.

But Apple is about something more than that. Apple, at t