Once you’ve finished at Harvard Business School or any other top academic institution, the vast majority of people you’ll interact with on a day-to-day basis may not be smarter than you. And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited. But if you have a humble eagerness

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I would argue that the high standard for congruence among Japanese establishments plays a similar role in improving the quality of public life. Yes, tasteful establishments cater towards wealthier patrons, but they are key players in creating the city’s overall appeal, as most shop owners are working hard to provide “visual delight.” Japanese propr... See more

Again, the idea of manifesting your own ideas of success, your reasons for life, plays a huge role here. It allows ego to be put to the side in favor of accomplishing a common goal, an idea that we can do it differently this time.

Choose work you have a natural aptitude for and a deep interest in. Develop a habit of working on your own projects; it doesn't matter what they are so long as you find them excitingly ambitious. Work as hard as you can without burning out, and this will eventually bring you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. These look smooth from a distance, b... See more

I think that one of the things, again, my son has been such a blessing to me over the past couple of years because I think that is an example of I almost missed him. I was so focused on solving him and preparing the path for him with his ADHD and his challenges there that I was exerting my efficacy on his life, and I almost didn’t know him. And he’... See more

Visa’s founding CEO Dee Hock had a realization. He saw clearly that it was “beyond the power of reason to design an organization” capable of coordinating a global network of financial transactions of the sort that had started to develop.7 Yet, he also knew that nature regularly achieves just that. Why, he wondered, couldn’t “a human organization wo

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I could sense the difference between authentic effortless (actually not giving a damn and being comfortable in my skin) and this manufactured effortless I had known before (aka people with a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time who get to look like they rolled out of bed) It really begs the question: who actually gets to be cool anyway?

A crush is a powerful little vial of that pure feeling—the longing, the push and pull. In his poem “The More Loving One,” W. H. Auden compared unrequited love to looking up at the stars, observing their beauty while knowing full well they “do not give a damn.” But he wasn’t mad about it; he saw that that’s how it should be, and anyway, he was more ... See more