I recently finished “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the full book here.

“When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended and sphinxlike.” (ix)

“When you are weaker, never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead.” (xii)

“Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.” (xiii)

“You actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more.” (xiii)

“Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose.” (xiii)

“Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment.” (xiii)

“By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.” (xiv)

“Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.” (xvi)

“Today we face a peculiarly similar paradox to that of the courtier: Everything must appear civilized, decent, democratic, and fair. But if we play by those rules too strictly, if we take them too literally, we are crushed by those around us who are not so foolish.” (xvii)

“The most important of these skills, and power’s crucial foundation, is the ability to master your emotions. An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings. Emotions cloud reason, and if you cannot see the situation clearly, you cannot prepare for and respond to it with any degree of control.” (xix)

“Anger is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most. It also has a ripple effect that invariably makes situations less controllable and heightens your enemy’s resolve. If you are trying to destroy an enemy who has hurt you, far better to keep him off-guard by feigning friendliness than showing your anger.” (xix)

“You cannot repress anger or love, or avoid feeling them, and you should not try. But you should be careful about how you express them, and most important, they should never influence your plans and strategies in any way.” (xx)

“Instead of spending your time dreaming of your plan’s happy ending, you must work on calculating every possible permutation and pitfall that might emerge in it.” (xx)

“Patience is the supreme virtue of the gods, who have nothing but time. Everything good will happen – the grass will grow again, if you give it time and see several steps into the future. Impatience, on the other hand, only makes you look weak. It is a principal impediment to power.” (xxi)

“Power is essentially amoral and one of the most important skills to acquire is the ability to see circumstances rather than good or evil.” (xxi)

“Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others – that is too high a price to pay.” (xxii)

“The producer of a great work wants to feel he is more than just the provider of the financing. He wants to appear creative and powerful, and also more important than the work produced in his name.” (4)

“When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.” (4)

“It is a deadly but common misperception to believe that by displaying and vaunting your gifts and talents, you are winning the master’s affection.” (5)

“Never imagine that because the master loves you, you can do anything you want.” (5)

“Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your head.” (6)

“Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels.” (12)

“People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favor can become oppressive: It means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades. The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive.” (12)

“Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.” (13)

“Never let the presence of enemies upset or distress you – you are far better off with a declared opponent or two than not knowing where your real enemies lie.” (14)

“Sometimes any emotion is better than the boredom of security.” (18)

“Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts.” (20)

“The less you say, the more profound and mysterious you appear.” (35)

“Make your reputation simple and base it on one sterling quality.” (42)

“To create a crowd you have to do something different and odd. Any kind of curiosity will serve the purpose, for crowds are magnetically attracted by the unusual and inexplicable. And once you have their attention, never let it go.” (47)

“At the beginning of your rise to the top, then, spend all your energy on attracting attention. Most important: The quality of the attention is irrelevant. No matter how badly his shows were reviewed, or how slanderously personal were the attacks on his hoaxes, Barnum would never complain.” (47)

“Society craves larger-than-life figures, people who stand above the general mediocrity. Never be afraid, then, of the qualities that set you apart and draw attention to you.  Court controversy, even scandal. It is better to be attacked, even slandered, than ignored.” (48)

“Once in the limelight you must constantly renew it by adapting and varying your method of courting attention. If you don’t, the public will grow tired, will take you for granted, and will move on to a newer star. The game requires constant vigilance and creativity.” (48)

“Learn to get others to do the work for you while you take the credit, and you appear to be of godlike strength and power. If you think it is important to do all the work yourself, you will never get far. Find people with the skills and creativity you lack.” (59)

“Win through your actions, never through argument.” (69)

“Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.” (71)

“The problem in trying to prove a point or gain victory through argument is that in the end you can never be certain how it affects the people you’re arguing with: They may appear to agree with you politely, but inside they may resent you. Or perhaps something you said inadvertently even offended them – words have that insidious ability to be interpreted according to the other person’s mood and insecurities. Even the best argument has no solid foundation, for we have all come to distrust the slippery nature of words. And days after agreeing with someone, we often revert to our old opinion out of sheer habit.” (72)

“Never associate with those who share your defects – they will reinforce everything that holds you back. Only create associations with positive affinities. Make this a rule of life and will benefit more than from all the therapy in the world.” (81)

“Be the only one who can do what you do, and make the fate of those who hire you so entwined with yours that they cannot possibly get rid of you.” (83)

“If you are ambitious, it is much wiser to seek out weak rulers or masters with whom you can create a relationship of dependency. You become their strength, their intelligence, their spine. What power you hold! If they got rid of you the whole edifice would collapse.” (84)

“You do not have to have the talent of a Michelangelo; you do have to have a skill that sets you apart from the crowd. You should create a situation in which you can always latch on to another master or patron but your master cannot easily find another servant with your particular talent. And if, in reality, you are not actually indispensable, you must find a way to make it look as if you are. Having the appearance of specialized knowledge and skill gives you leeway in your ability to deceive those above you into thinking they cannot do without you.” (86)

“What good is power if it brings you no peace?” (87)

“The drive for complete control is often ruinous and fruitless. Interdependence remains the law, independance a rare and often fatal exception.” (88)

“Even the most powerful person is locked inside needs of his own, and that if you make no appear to his self-interest, he merely sees you as desperate or, at best, a waste of time.” (98)

“The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interests to promote yours. (Jean de La Bruyere)” (100)

“You must distinguish the differences among powerful people and figure out what makes them tick. When they ooze greed, do not appeal to their charity. When they want to look charitable and noble, do not appeal to their greed.” (100)

“In the realm of power, your goal is a degree of control over future events.” (103)

“There will be people you cannot win over, who will remain your enemies no matter what. But whatever wound you inflicted on them, deliberately or not, do not take their hatred personally. Just recognize that there is no possilbity of peace between you, especially as long as you stay in power. If you let them stick around, they will seek revenge, as certainly as night follows day. To wait for them to show their cards is just silly, by then it will be too late.” (113)

“You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.” (115)

“A man said to a Dervish: Why do I not see you more often?” The Dervish replied, “Because the words ‘Why have you not been to see me?’ are sweeter to my ears than the words ‘Why have you come again?’” -Mulla Jami (119)

“One chess master said, “Fischer doesn’t just look for the best move. He looks for the move that will disturb the man he is playing.”” (125)

“Only the terminally subordinate act in a predictable manner.” (128)

“The moment you lose contact with your people, seeking security in isolation, rebellion is brewing. Never imagine yourself so elevated that you can afford to cut yourself off from even the lowest echelons.” (134)

“Artists who hole themselves up in their fortress lose a sense of proportion, their work communicating only to their small circle. Such art remains cornered and powerless.” (135)

“When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet.” -Ch’an (138)

“You can never be sure who you are dealing with. A man who is of little importance and means today can be a person of power tomorrow. We forget a lot in our lives, but we rarely forget an insult.” (142)

“People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants. Their aloofness is powerful, and everyone wants them on their side.” (149)

“Once you step into a fight that is not of your choosing, you lose all initiative. The combatants’ interests become your interests; you become their tool. Learn to control yourself, to restrain your natural tendency to take sides and join the fight. Be friendly and charming to each of the combatants, then step back as they collide. With every battle they grow weaker, while you grow stronger with every battle you avoid.” (152)

“Most people operate in a whirlpool of emotions, constantly reacting, churning up squabbles and conflicts. Your self-control and autonomy will only bother and infuriate them. They will try to draw you into the whirlpool, begging you to take sides in their endless battles, or to make peace for them.” (152)

“Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people’s vanity, it is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power. That is an unforgivable sin.” (159)

“The easier they think it is to prey on you, the more easily you can turn the tables. This trick is laso useful if you are ambitious yet find yourself low in the hierarchy: Appearing less intelligent than you are, even a bit of a fool, is the perfect disguise. Look like a harmless pig and no one will believe you harbor dangerous ambitions. They may even promote you since you seem so likeable, and subservient.” (160)

“People trying to make a show of their authority are easily deceived by the surrender tactic. Your outward sign of submission makes them feel important; satisfied that you respect them, they become easier targets for a later counterattack, or for the kind of indirect ridicule used by Brecht. Measuring your power over time, never sacrifice long-term maneuverability for the short-lived glories of martyrdom.” (167)

“When the great lord passes, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.” -Ethiopian proverb (167)

“What gets us into trouble in the realm of power is often our own overreaction to the moves of our enemies and rivals. The overreaction crates problems we would have avoided had we been more reasonable.” (167)

“The mind must not wander from goal to goal, or be distracted by success from its sense of purpose and proportion. What is concentrated, coherent, and connected to its past has power. What is dissipated, divded, and distended rots and falls to the ground. The bigger it bloats, the harder it falls.” (172)

“Concentrate on a single goal, a single task, and beat it into submission.” (175)

“In any organization it is inevitablele for a small group to hold the strings. And often it is not those with the titles.” (175)

“Practice Nonchalancee. Never seem to be working too hard. Your talent must appear to flow naturally, with an ease that makes people take you for a genius rather than a workaholic. Even when something demands a lot of sweat, make it look effortless – people prefer to not see your blood and toil, which is another form of ostentation.” (180)

“Be frugal in asking those above you for favors. Nothing irritates a master more than having ot reject someone’s request. It stirs up guilt and resentment. Ask for favors as rarely as possible, and know when to stop.” (181)

“Do not be the court cynic. Express admiration for the good work of others. If you constantly criticize your equals or subordinates some of that criticism will rub off on you, hovering over you like a gray cloud wherever you go. People will groan at each new cynical comment, and you will irritate them. By expressing modest admiration for other people’s achievements, you paradoxically call attention to your own. The ability to express wonder and amazement, and seem like you mean it, is a rare and dying talent, but one still greatly valued.” (181)

“Honesty is a fool’s game. Never be so self-absorbed as to believe that the master is interested in your criticisms of him, no matter how accurate they are.” (183)

“Never imagine that skill and talent are all that matter. In court the courtier’s art is more important than his talent; never spend so much time on your studies that you neglect your social skills. And the greatest skill of all is the ability to make the master look more talented than those around him.” (184)

“People of power, are undone not by the mistakes they make, but by the way they deal with them.” (202)

“One should not be too straightforward. Go and see the forest. The straight trees are cut down, the crooked ones are left standing.” -Kautilya (211)

“As a leader you may imagine that constant diligence, and the appearance of working harder than anyone else, signify power. Actually, though, they have the opposite effect: They imply weakness. Why are you working so hard? Perhaps you are incompetent, and have to put in extra effort just to keep up; perhaps you are one of those people who does not know how to delegate, and has to meddle in everything. The truly powerful, on the other hand, seem never to be in a hurry or overburdened. While others work their fingers to the bone, they take their leisure. They know how to find the right people to put in the effort while they save their energy and keep their hands out of the fire.” (211)

“Do everything pleasant yourself, everything unpleasant through third parties. By adopting the first course you win favor, by taking the second you deflect ill will. Important affairs often require rewards and punishments. Let only the good come from you and the evil from others.” -Baltasar Gracian (213)

“If you have power and are secure in it, you should sometimes play the penitent: With a sorrowful look, you ask for forgiveness from those weaker than you. It is the ploy of the king who makes a show of his own sacrifices for the good of the people. Similarly, upon occasion you may want to appear as the agent of punishment in order to instill fear and trembling in your subordinates.” (214)

“Remember: People are not interested in the truth about change. They do not want ot hear that it has come from hard work, or from anything as banal as exhaustion, boredom, or depression; they are dying to believe in something romantic, otherworldly. They want to hear of angels and out-of-body experiences. Indulge them.” (221)

“Voice what the public feels – the expression of shared feelings is always powerful.” (233)

“Understand: If boldness is not natural, neither is timidity. It is an acquired habit, picked up out of a desire to avoid conflict. If timidity has taken a hold of you, then, root it out. Your fears of the consequences of a bold action are way out of proportion to reality, and in fact the consequences of timidity are worse. Your value is lowered and you create a self-fulfilling cycle of doubt and disaster. Remember: The problems created by an audacious move can be disguised, even remedied, by more and greater audacity.” (234)

“Improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute ofr thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end.” (239)

“Unhappy endings are much more common than happy ones – do not be swayed by the happy ending in your mind.” (242)

“Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.” (245)

“Your audience must never suspect the work or the thinking that has gone into them. Nature does not reveal its tricks, and what imitates nature by appearing effortless approximates nature’s power.” (247)

“As a person of power, you must research and practice endlessly before appearing in public, onstage or anywhere else. Never expose the swat and labor behind your poise. Some think such exposure will demonstrate their diligence and honesty, but it actually just makes them look weaker – as if anyone who practiced and worked at it could do what they had done, or as if they weren’t really up to the job. Keep your effort and your tricks to yourself and you seem to have the grace and ease of a god.” (250)

“The effort Uccello spent on improving the appearance of perspective was too obvious in his work – it made his paintings ugly and labored, overwhelmed by the effort of their effects. We have the same response when we watch performers who put too much effort into their act: Seeing them trying so hard breaks the illusion. It also makes us uncomfortable. Calm, graceful performers, on the other hand, set us at ease, creating the illusion that they are not acting but being natural and themselves, even when everything they are doing involves labor and practice.” (251)

“Avoid the temptation of showing how clever you are – it is far more clever to conceal the mechanisms of your cleverness.” (251)

“As long as the partial disclosure of tricks and techniques is carefully planned, rather than the result of an uncontrollable need to blab, it is the ultimate in cleverness. It gives the audience the illusion of being superior and involved, even while much of what you do remains concealed from them.” (253)

“People rarely believe that their problems arise from their own misdeeds and stupidity. Someone or something out there is to blame – the other, the world, the gods – and so salvation comes from the outside as well.” (266)

“To gain power, you must be a source of pleasure for those around you – and pleasure comes from playing to people’s fantasies. Never promise a gradual improvement through hard work; rather, promise the moon, the great and sudden transformation, the pot of gold.” (266)

“Leaders who try to dissolve that distance through a false chumminess gradually lose the ability to inspire loyalty, fear, or love. Instead they elicit contempt.” (284)

“By asking for the moon, he had instantly raised his own status, for the king assumed that unless a man who set such a high price on himself were mad, which Columbus did not appear to be, he must somehow be worth it.” (285)

“Understand: It is within your power to set your own price. How you carry yourself reflects what you think of yourself. If you ask for little, shuffle your feet and lower your head, people will assume this reflects your character. But this behavior is not you – it is only how you have chosen to present yourself to other people. You can just as easily present the Columbus front: buoyancy, confidence, and the feeling that you were born to wear a crown.” (286)

“The Strategy of the Crown is based on a simple chain of cause and effect: If we believe we are destined for great things, our belief will radiate outward, just as a crown creates an aura around a king.” (287)

“Always make a bold demand. Set your price high and do not waver. Second, in a dignified way, go after the highest person in the building. This immediately puts you on the same plane as the chief executive you are attacking. It is the David and Goliath Strategy: By choosing a great opponent, you create the appearance of greatness.” (288)

“Never make the mistake of thinking that you elevate yourself by humiliating people. Also, it is never a good idea to loom too high above the crowd – you make an easy target.” (290)

“Power rarely ends up in the hands of those who start a revolution, or even of those who further it; power sticks to those who bring it to a conclusion.” (292)

“When you force the pace out of fear and impatience, you create a nest of problems that require fixing, and you end up taking much longer than if you had taken your time.” (296)

“Success that is built up slowly and surely is the only kind that lasts.” (297)

“Robert-Houdin took explicit effect of this effect: ‘The more slowly a story is told,’ he said, ‘the shorter it seems.’ Going slower also makes what you are doing more interesting – the audience yields to your pace, becomes entranced. It is a state in which times whizzes delightfully by.” (298)

“Remember; You choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose not to notice the irritating offender, to consider the matter trivial and unworthy of your interest.” (302)

“Never show that something has affected you, or that you are offended – that only shows you have acknowledged a problem. Contempt is a dish that is best served cold and without affection.” (307)

“Always find a symbol to represent your cause – the more emotional associations, the better.” (315)

“To show your frustration is to show that you have lost your power to shape events; it is the helpless action of the child who resorts to a hysterical fit to get his way.” (327)

“Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.” (333)

“Excessive economy is a sign of decline and a bad omen.” (340)

“Aretino understood two fundamental properties of money: First, that it has to circulate to bring power. What money should buy is not lifeless objects but power over people… Second, Aretino understood the key property of the gift. To give a gift is to imply that you and the recipient are equals at the very least, or that you are the recipient’s superior.” (340)

“Never let yourself be seen as following your predecessor’s path. If you do you will never surpass him.” (353)

“Most people are afraid to break so boldly with tradition, but they secretly admire those who can break up the old forms and reinvigorate the culture. This is why there is so much power to be gained from entering vacuums and voids.” (354)

“Fyodor Dostoyevsky, similarly, whenever he wrote a successful novel, would feel that the financial security he had gained made the act of creation unnecessary. He would take his entire savings to the casino and would not leave until he had gambled away his last penny. Once reduced to poverty he could write again.” (355)

“Pablo Picasso could deal with success, but only by constantly changing the style of his painting, often breaking completely with what had made him successful before. How often our early triumphs turn us into a kind of caricature of ourselves.” (355)

“Remember: Stirrers thrive by hiding in the group, disguising their actions among the reactions of others. Render their actions visible and they lose their power to upset.” (363)

“It is often better to isolate your enemies than to destroy them – you seem less brutal.” (364)

“Talking in parables is often the best way to teach a lesson, for it allows people to realize the truth on their own.” (387)

“It was a clever move when, in the year A.D. 354, the Christian church, under Pope Liberius co-opted the birthday of Mithras and declared December 25 to be the birthday of Jesus Christ.” (394)

“Change can be pleasant and even sometimes desirable in the abstract, but too much of it creates an anxiety that will stir and boil beneath the surface and then eventually erupt. Never underestimate the hidden conservatism of those around you. It is powerful and entrenched.” (394)

“Instead of struggling against the past, he turned it to his advantage, associating his radical Communists with the romantic figures of Chinese history.” (396)

“Pay lip service to tradition. Identify the elements in your revolution that can be made to seem to build on the past. Say the right things, make a show of conformity, and meanwhile let your theories do their radical work. Play with appearances and respect past protocol. This is true in every arena – science being no exception.” (398)

“The changes you make must seem less innovative than they are.” (398)

“It takes a great talent and skill to conceal one’s talent and skill.” -La Rochefoucauld (402)

“Once envy eats away at someone, everything you do only makes it grow, and day by day it festers inside him. Eventually he will attack.” (402)

“Accept the fact that there will be people who will surpass you in some way, and also the fact that you may envy them. But make that feeling a way of pushing yourself to equal or surpass them someday. Let envy turn inward and it poisons the soul; expel it outward and it can move you to greater heights.” (405)

“Money others can attain; power as well. But superior intelligence, good looks, charm – these are qualities no one can acquire. The naturally perfect have to work the most to disguise their brilliance, displaying a defect or two to deflect envy before it takes root. It is a common and naive mistake to think you are charming people with your natural talents when in fact they are coming to hate you.” (406)

“Subtly emphasize how lucky you have been, to make your happiness seem more attainable to other people, and the ned for envy less acute. But be careful not to affect a false modesty that people can easily see through. This will only make them more envious. The act has to be good; your humility, and your openness to those you have left behind, have to seem genuine. Any hint of insincerity will only make your new status more oppressive. Remember: Despite your elevated position, it will do you no good to alienate your former peers. Power requires a wide and solid support base, which envy can silently destroy.” (407)

“People cannot envy the power that they themselves have given a person who does not seem to desire it.” (407)

“Disguise your power as a kind of self-sacrifice rather than a source of happiness and you make it seem less enviable. Emphasize your troubles and you turn a potential danger (envy) into a source of moral support (pity).” (407)

“Do not try to help or do favors for those who envy you; they will think you are condescending to them.” (408)

“Once envy reveals itself for what it is, the only solution is often to flee the presence of the enviers, leaving them to stew in a hell of their own creation.” (408)

“The wheel of fortune will hurtle you down as easily as up. If you prepare for the fall, it is less likely to ruin you when it happens.” (416)

As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the full book.

I recently read “Instant Influence: How to Get Anyone to Do Anything – FAST” by  Michael V Pantalon, PhD. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you find the quotes interesting, please buy the book here.

“People usually act for their own reasons, not someone else’s reasons. If they do change a behavior because of something someone else has said, most of the time that change won’t stick. The secret of Instant Influence is that it helps people discover their own reasons for doing something, even something they thought they didn’t want to do.” (5)

“Here are the six steps that will allow you to achieve Instant Influence:
Step 1: Why might you change?
Step 2: How ready are you to change – on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means “not ready at all” and 10 means “totally ready”?
Step 3: Why didn’t you pick a lower number? (Or if the influencee picked 1, either ask the second questions again, this time about a smaller step toward change, or ask, what would it atke for that 1 to turn into a 2?)
Step 4: Imagine you’ve changed. What would the positive outcomes be?
Step 5: Why are those outcomes important to you?
Step 6: What’s the next step, if any?” (5)

“If a person is deeply committed to refusing change, no motivational technique will make a difference. When someone genuinely doesn’t want to change, change won’t happen.” (11)

“At almost every turn, your efforts were doomed to fail. That’s because you were using what I like to call the tell-and-sell approach: you tell someone your reasons for doing something, then try to sell her on them.” (18)

“The other person might agree with you, but that won’t spark a desire to take action. That desire – the motivation to act – lives in each one of us. But the only way to unlock it is with our own reasons.” (18)

“Using the wrong type of encouragement can actually make a person want to do something less.” (18)

“People can tell you all day long that they wish they could do something. But when they tell you why they want to do it, that’s when things start to happen.” (19)

“That’s instant influence in a nutshell. Get someone to tell you why he wants to act, and action is almost sure to follow.” (19)

“This kind of question – Why are you even thinking about this? or, Why might you consider it? is another version of Step 1 of the Instant Influence process.” (23)

“Focusing on any tiny bit of motivation works much better than asking about resistance.” (25)

“Hearing ourselves say what we want to do helps us find the motivation to do it.” (31)

“My trainees can’t quite believe that simply saying “I’d really like to do X” will actually make it more likely that the person will, in fact, do X. I assure you that dozens of well respected studies have verified this point, magical as it may sound. The reason we’re so surprised, I think, is because we’re used to hearing people say “I should do X,” and that, of course, has virtually the opposite effect. The more we think we should do something, the less likely we may be to do it, particularly when the law of psychological reactance kicks in.” (31)

“You can modify Step 1 of the Instant Influence technique to focus on actual behavior. Instead of asking, “Why might you change?” you could ask, “Why have you already taken [some action that represents a tiny step toward changing]?” (34)

“People’s actions often show that they have far more motivation than they are aware of. We can use the evidence of those actions to help them find even more motivation.” (34)

“For example, many studies have found that bonuses don’t promote more dedicated performance. Instead, they seem to motivate unethical behavior: shortcuts, cheating, and other ways to get the bonus that don’t involve doing a good job.” (51)

“If you can’t get someone to think, you won’t be able to influence him.” (74)

“Every time those baby steps (placing the manual by the computer) did the trick. Once he’d made even the least bit of progress, his natural motivation took over and carried him along.” (105)

“Choose something that you can literally see or hear yourself doing (an action) rather than something that remains in your mind only (a decision or a new way of thinking).” (107)

“Allow yourself to focus on behavior, and your decisions will take care of themselves.” (107)

“Improving the Process:
- Keep looking for smaller and smaller beginning steps until you find one that feels safe or that you can at least visualize doing.
- Don’t judge or self-censor. Just be open to the process.
- Explicitly remind yourself to ignore the hows and why nots. Focus instead on why you want something.
- Expect to get carried away. The tiniest step of sets in motion a series of thoughts, feelings, and ideas that create new momentum.
- Prepare to be surprised. You will almost certainly learn something new about your own reasons for wanting something.
- Trust the process. You may find yourself taking action almost without realizing it, so don’t feel you need to force yourself.” (116)

“Research suggests that when people are presented with illogical, odd, unrelated, or irrational material – in scientific terms, “meaning-threat” material – they tend to arrive at better solutions in less time.” (117)

“As we’ve seen, we often focus too much on the how when we really should be looking at the why.” (120)

“Occasionally, we take on the wishes of people around us – parents, partners, even friends – instead of acknowledging our true desires. We believe in those false dreams, then wonder why we can never seem to take action to make them come true. All too often, our true desires scare us, either because they seem difficult to attain or because achieving them would shake things up elsewhere in our lives.” (126)

[when dealing with customer service] “You need to detach from any sense of being in a power struggle and instead focus on getting what you want. The person you’re dealing with may never acknowledge your right to what you want – but he may find a way to give it to you. His motivation for doing so, however, will probably not come from a sudden awareness of the correctness of your position. Rather, it will spring from discovering why he wants to help you even though he doesn’t have to. If your goal is to prove to him that he does have to help you, you’re setting yourself up for failure.” (162)

“Need is often just another way of saying should, and anytime the word should is used, we risk triggering the law of psychological reactance.” (178)

“If someone is giving you reasons talk, remember the “five whys.” If you can, keep asking, “And why is that important?” until you hear a response that feels genuinely personal and heartfelt.” (180)

“As hard as it is to believe, such excuses are good news. Giving reasons for not doing something is one of the strongest signs that a person is seriously considering doing it.” (188)

“I know how easy it is to fall into the role of the person with all the answers. But I’ve also seen, time and again, that giving up that authority and genuinely investing in the person’s autonomy can have enormous dividends, as he reveals himself to be a more independent, self-confident, and creative person than we ever might have dreamed.” (201)

“Edwin Locke and Gary Latham found in a landmark study: when workers set their own goals, they set goals that were harder to achieve than the ones supervisors assigned to them – and they were more likely to achieve those goals.” (202)

“People often like the attention that comes from others being concerned about them. Without consciously realizing it, they refuse to change as long as people take an interest in helping them.” (216)

As always, if you found the quotes interesting, please buy the book here.

I recently read “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think” by  Brian Wansink. The quotes I found most interesting are below. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Almost any sign with a number promotion (2 for $2) leads us to buy 30 to 100 percent more than we normally would.” (24)

“If we consciously deny ourselves something again and again, we’re likely to end up craving it more and more.” (27)

“Dish out 20 percent less than you think you might want before you start to eat.” (34)

“If our guests had their tables continually bussed, they continually ate. Clean plate, clean table, get more, eat more.” (39)

“If a person thinks he ate less than that typical volume, he’ll think he’s hungry. If he thinks he ate more, he’ll think he’s full.” (45)

“Volume trumps calories. We eat the volume we want, not the calories we want. If you were to make a given amount of food twice as caloric, people wouldn’t complain that they couldn’t eat all of it. If you made the same amount half as caloric, people wouldn’t complain they were still hungry. In both cases, they would say they were full.” (45)

“The faster we wolf down our food, the more we eat.” (46)

“Sure, a person saves some money by buying the big M&M’s bag, but if he decides to watch a hundred videos in the next yar, it will also cost him nine pounds of extra weight.” (59)

“We all consume more from big packages, whatever the product.” (59)

“Our brains have a basic tendency to overfocus on the height of objects at the expense of their width.” (62)

“The people given a short, wide glass poured an average of 19 percent more juice or soft drink than those given the tall, thin glass.” (63)

“Setting the table with the wrong dinner plates or serving bowls – the big ones – sets the stage for overeating.” (70)

“Increasing the variety of a food increases how much everyone eats.” (71)

“The more you think of something, the more of it you’ll eat.” (80)

“The more hassle it is to eat, the less we eat.” (84)

“When people ate alone, some ate very little and others ate quite a lot… When eating in groups of four or eight, light eaters ate more, and heavy eaters ate less.” (98)

“It’s about as close to an established fact as things get in the social sciences: People who watch a lot of TV are more likely to be overweight than people who don’t. The less TV people watch, the skinnier they are. It doesn’t matter if they’re 14 or 44. It doesn’t matter if they watch network TV, cable TV, the Food Network, or the NASCAR Network. As TV viewing goes up, weight goes up.” (102)

“Anything that takes our focus off the food makes us more likely to overeat without knowing it.” (104)

“The atmosphere of a restaurant can cause you to overeat if it gets you to stay longer (thus ordering and eating more), or if it gets you to eat faster.” (106)

“If we can’t see the food and someone tells us we’re going to taste strawberry, we taste strawberry, even if it’s really chocolate.” (120)

“If you expect food to taste good, it will. At the very least, it will taste better than if you had thought it would only be so-so… If you expect a food to taste bad, it will.” (122)

“The foods with descriptive names sold 27 percent more. And even though they were priced exactly the same, the customers who ate them consistently rated them as a better value than did the people who ate the same dishes with the boring old names.” (126)

“The foods with descriptive names were rated as more appealing and tastier than the identical foods with the less attractive labels.” (126)

“The customers who ate the food with descriptive names had more favorable attitudes toward the cafeteria as a whole.” (127)

“Despite what they say, most people can’t pick their brand once it’s out of the package and into a bowl.” (130)

“Most people use a two step approach to buying wine: they choose a price level, say $10, and they then look for a bottle with a nice-looking label.” (133)

“The feelings we have when we first eat a food can follow us for a lifetime. It doesn’t matter whether we’re an adult or a child.” (156)

“We discovered that people who ate the best one first often shared one of two characteristics: they either grew up as a youngest child or came from large families. The people most likely to save the best for last, on the other hand, had grown up as an only child or as the oldest.” (158)

If you liked the quotes, please buy the book here.

I recently read “Driven From Within” by Michael Jordan. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Players who practice hard when no one is paying attention generally play well when everyone is watching.” (8)

“What I did on the floor drove the marketing, not the other way around. The Jordan brand was driven by what I did every night playing the game.” (12)

“When my play starting providing me with rewards, then I wanted to prove I deserved them. I never felt the desire to rest on what I had accomplished.” (13)

“I never felt like I deserved to drive a Bentley when I got my first contract, or live in a mansion. Those things might be symbols of success to some people, but there are a lot of people who confuse symbols with actual success.” (13)

“Just like my high school coach used to say: It’s hard, but it’s fair.” (13)

“I had no doubts or fears because I never had expectations that were out of context with my skill level.” (25)

“No one had in mind what would be acceptable for me. After the first year, the expectations came, but by that time I had positive habits.” (33)

“I understood that the reason I was getting attention was because of the work I had put in up to that point, not because of what I had done to meet other people’s expectations for me.” (33)

“The whole marketing approach is about drawing attention to the product. Once that happens, and everyone performs the way they are supposed to perform, then the two come together like a perfect marriage.” (48)

“You have to be uncompromised in your level of commitment to whatever you are doing, or it can disappear as fast as it appeared.” (52)

“Some players noticed me because of everything I was doing off the court, and that was the wrong reason to pay attention to me. Pay attention to the way I played the game. Pay attention to my passion. Pay attention to the idea of focusing on improvement every day. Pay attention to my commitment. Commitment cannot be compromised by rewards. Excellence isn’t a one-week or one-year ideal. It’s a constant. There will be days when you don’t feel on top of your game, or meetings in which you aren’t at your best, but your commitment remains constant. No compromises.” (52)

“Authenticity is about being true to who you are, even when everyone else wnats you to be someone else.” (135)

“It’s a lot harder to become the best you can be when you’re focused on trying to be the best version of someone else. There’s nothing authentic in that, and if it’s not authentic, then it’s not going to last.” (135)

“Maybe even a shot that could have won a game. I can deal with that. If I don’t miss the shot, then I don’t miss it – we win. I can rationalize the fact there are only two outcomes: You either make it, or you miss it. I could think that way because I knew I had earned the opportunity to take that shot.

I had put in all the work, not only in that particular game, but in practice every day. If I missed, then it wasn’t meant to be. That simple. It wasn’t because the effort wasn’t there. It wasn’t because I couldn’t make the shot, because I had taken the same shot many time in every situation. As soon as the ball went up, there weren’t any nerves because I had trained myself for that situation.

I was as prepared as I could possibly have been for that moment. I couldn’t go back and practice a little harder. I knew I had done the right things to prepare myself for that situation. One way or another, I knew I was prepared to be successful. Now, if you know you haven’t prepared correctly, or you know you haven’t worked hard enough, that’s when other thoughts and emotions creep into your mind. That’s stress. That’s fear.” (167)

“It’s the same process for doing anything, anywhere in life no matter how big or small the stage. Whehter it’s running a corporation, taking a test in second grade or taking a shot ot win a game, at that moment you are the sum total of all the work you have put in, nothing more and nothing less. If you are confident you have done everything possible to prepare yourself, then there is nothing to fear. There’s no stress in losing under those circumstances. It just wasn’t meant to be.” (167)

“If I go to New Jersey for Game 56, we were probably expected to win the agme by 30 points in those days. But that never dawned on me. It was the idea somebody might be sitting there who had never seen Michael Jordan play. I thought about that person who had never experienced the excitement or entertainment I could provide. That would be the thought that drove me to play that game.” (181)

“When I did get attention, I wanted to show people that I deserved it.” (185)

“The products, companies and people who stay true to who they are usually end up being around for a long time. The ones that lose their way by jumping on one fad or another, or trying to be something other than what or who they are, don’t last long.“ (194)

“We bring our personalities, our visions and our creativity to the discussion, and we don’t give a damn about getting credit.” (202)

“Successful people listen. Guys who don’t listen, don’t survive long.” (202)

If you liked the quotes, please buy the book here.

I recently read “Makers: The New Industrial Revolution” by Chris Anderson. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“We are all Makers. We are born Makers (just watch a child’s fascination with drawing, blocks, Legos, or crafts), and many of us retain that love in our hobbies and passions.” (13)

“The great opportunity in the new Maker Movement is the ability to be both small and global. Both artisanal and innovative. Both high-tech and low-cost. Starting small but getting big. And, most of all, creating the sort of products that the world wants but doesn’t know it yet, because those products don’t fit neatly into the amss economics of the old model.” (16)

“We are surrounded by physical goods, most of them products of a manufacturing economy that over the past century has been transformed in all ways but one: unlike the Web, it hasn’t been opened to all. Because of the expertise, equipment, and costs of producing things on a large scale, manufacturing has been mostly the provenance of big companies and trained professionals. That’s about to change.” (17)

“”Place” matters less and less in manufacturing these days – ideas trump geography.” (47)

“Now we hardly give the details of computing a thought, in part because maturing technology hides most of that plumbing from us.” (59)

“In short: our species turns out to be a lot more diverse than our twentieth-century markets reflected. The limited store selection of our youth reflected the economic demands of retail of the day, not the true range of human taste. We are all different, with different wants and needs, and the Internet now has a place for all of them in the way that physical markets did not.” (64)

“The Internet also lengthened the tails of physical product markets for consumers. But it did so by revolutionizing distribution, not production.” (64)

“Remember that the real Web revolution was not that we could just buy more stuff with greater choice, but make our own stuff that others could consume.” (65)

“The rise of Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and all the others like them is nothing less than a massive attention shift from the commercial content companies of the twentieth century to the amateur content companies of the twenty-first.” (66)

“Manufacturing has now become just another “cloud service” that you can access from Web browsers, using a tiny amount of vast industrial infrastructure as and when you need it. Somebody else runs these factories; we just access them when we need them, much as we can access the huge server farms of Google or Apple to store our photos or process our e-mail.” (66)

“Nich goods aimed at discriminating audiences can command higher prices.” (67)

“Adam Davidson writers, “Once people reach some level of comfort, they are willing – even eager – to trade in potential earnings at a lucrative but uninspiring job for less (but comfortable) pay at more satisfying work.” (70)

“In all cases, people would pay more for things where their own sweat was one of the ingredients.” (71)

“We live in a “remix” culture: everything is inspired by something that came before, and creativity is shown as much in the reinterpretation of existing works as in original ones.” (74)

“What the new manufacturing model enables is a mass market for niche products. Think ten thousand units, not ten million (mass) or one (mass customization).” (77)

“The collective potential of a million garage tinkerers is about to be unleashed on the global markets as ideas go straight into production, no financing or tooling required.” (78)

“We’re competing in the international market from day one. The usual trap of focusing on the local market first with hopes of expanding internationally later leaves companies unprepared for global competition. Selling to the whole world on day one makes a company stronger.” (105)

“What entrepreneurs quickly learn is that they need to price their product at least 2.3 times its cost to allow for at least one 50 percent margin for them and another 50 percent margin for their retailers (1.5 x 1.5 = 2.25).” (106)

“Most companies actually base their model on a 60 percent margin, which would lead to a 2.6 multiplier, but I’m applying a bit of a discount to capture that initial Maker altruism and growth accelerant.” (106)

“It may sound steep to you now, but if businesses don’t get the price right at the start, they won’t be able to keep making their products, and everyone loses.” (107)

“Any product that can build a community before launch has already proven itself in a way that few patents can match.” (109)

“Once you seed your community with content and start attracting users, your job is to give them jobs. Elevate people who seem to be constructive participants to moderator status, and give especially friendly and helpful members a “noob ninja” badge. Once you promote/reward enough of them for doing a good job of constructive community building, you’ll find that members typically help one another, saving you the work.” (110)

“When you’re creating a community from scratch, consider starting it as a social network rather than as a blog or discussion group.” (111)

“Seen this way, all making in public is marketing. Community management is marketing. Tutorial posts are marketing. Facebook updates are marketing. E-mailing other Makers in related fields is marketing. OF course, it’s not just marketing: the reason that it’s so effective is that it’s also providing something of value that people appreciate and pay attention to. But at the end of the day, everything you do, from the naming of your product to whose coattail you decide to ride (like we chose Arduino), is at least partly a marketing decision. Above all, your community is your best marketing channel.” (112)

“If you’ve given people a reason to gather that serves their needs and interests, crowing about your cool new gizmo isn’t advertising, it’s content!” (112)

“If someone decides to use our files, make no significant modifications or improvements, and just manufacture them and compete with us, they’ll have to do so much more cheaply than we can get traction in the marketplace. If they can do so, at the same or better quality, then that’s great: the consumer wins and we can stop making that product and focus on those that add more value (we don’t want to be in the commodity manufacturing business).” (114)

“it’s a sign of success – you get cloned only if you’re making something people want.” (116)

“When you let anyone contribute and ideas are judged on their merits rather than on the resume of the contributor, you invariably find that some of the best contributors are those who don’t actually do it in their day job.” (127)

“What this taps is the Long Tail of talent; in many fields there are a lot more people with skills, ideas, and time to help than there are people who have professional degrees and are otherwise credentialed.” (127)

“The Web allows people to show what they can do, regardless of their education and credentials. It allows gorups to form and work together easily outside of a company context, whether this involves “jobs” or not.” (148)

“As Thomas Friedman puts it, “It used to be that only cheap foreign manual labor was easily available; now cheap foreign genius is easily available.” (148)

“Companies are full of bureaucracy, procedures, and approval processes, a structure designed to defend the integrity of the organization. Communities, on the other hand, form around shared interests and needs, and have no more process than they require. The community exists for the project, not to support the company in which the project resides.” (150)

“It doesn’t matter who the best people work for; if the project is interesting enough, the best people will find it.” (151)

“In short, electronics can be made in America, as long as they’re specialty electronics, selling in the thousands, no millions.” (161)

“Kickstarter solves three huge problems for entrepreneurs. First, it simply moves revenues forward in time, to right when they’re needed…
Second, Kickstarter turns customers into a community. By backing a project, you’re doing more than pre-buying a product. You’re also betting on a team, and in turn they update you with progress reports and respond to suggestions in comments and discussion forums during the product’s genesis. This encourages a sense of participation in the project and turns backers into word-of-mouth evangelists, which helps projects go viral.
Finally, Kickstarter provides perhaps the most important service a new company needs: market research. If your project doesn’t hit its funding target, it probably would have failed in the marketplace anyway.” (167-168)

“The act of “making in public,” which is what Kickstarter project leaders do, turns product development into marketing.” (173)

“By the time a business process is too boring to comment on, it’s probably starting to actually work.” (208)

“For products that can be made robotically, which is more and more of them, the usual global economic calculus of labor arbitrage is becoming less and less important.” (227)

“What we will see is simply more. More innovation, in more places, from more people, focused on more narrow niches.” (229)

As always, if you liked the quotes, please buy the book here.

I recently read “Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men” by Michael Kimmel. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“More choices may not mean greater freedom, just a larger number of possible alternatives that are dismissed as wannabes and also-rans.” (16)

“The passage between adolescence and adulthood has morphed from a transitional moment to a separate life stage. Adolescence starts earlier and earlier, and adulthood starts later and later.” (25)

“They often feel that they’ve spent their entire childhoods being little grownups – being polite, listening attentively, and prepping for college since elementary school.” (27)

“Today, with women appearing to be every bit as professionally competent, career-oriented, and ambitious as men, and equally capable of earning a living wage, there is no longer the same sense of urgency for men to move toward “getting a good job” to eventually provide for the material needs of a wife and children.” (31)

“Masculinity is largely a “homosocial” experience: performed for, and judged by, men.” (47)

“Ninety percent of all driving offenses, excluding parking violations, are committed by men, and 93 percent of road ragers are male.” (51)

“At adolescence, girls suppress ambition, boys inflate it.” (73)

“Interestingly, girls assume they’ll be wrong – they like subjects where their answers are “not necessarily wrong,” while boys assume they’ll be right, so they like subjects where there is no gray area. Girls like English because it’s harder to wrong; guys hate it because it’s harder to be right.” (75)

“In part it’s because the transitional moment itself is so ill-defined. We, as a culture, lack any coherent ritual that might demarcate the passage from childhood to adulthood for men or women.” (100)

“Guys in Guyland want girls to be their “near-equals.” If they don’t play at all, they threaten the legitimacy of Guyland; if they play the game better than the guys, the same threat holds true.” (103)

“In other words, drinking “dangerously” requires a significant amount of safety. You may not know everyone you’re partying with, but you know that the people you are with are very likely to know people you know. You don’t “lose control” without having a large set of “controls” already built into the system.” (104)

“In the case of the University of Colorado, the biggest liquor store, with the closest proximity to campus, was owned by the Director of Athletics.” (119)

“Every generation thinks they had it tougher than the one that comes after them.” (121)

“Sports talk has become the reconstituted clubhouse, the last “pure” all-male space in America.” (127)

“Guys also like following sports because it’s a way to talk with other guys without having to talk about your feelings.” (128)

“Women remind us that we are supposed to be grown men. Other guys allow us to be immature boys. No wonder guys get so easily pissed off at women’s intrusion.” (136)

“Video games outsell movies, books, CDs, and DVDs by a landslide.” (154)

“Guys play video games, gamble, or pose and posture to the musical stylings of inn-city black youth because these poses give them the feeling of being in control.” (156)

“When a guy says he “hooked up” with someone, he may or may not have had sex with her, but he is certainly hoping that his friends think he has. A woman, on the other hand, is more likely to hope they think she hasn’t.” (197)

“There’s an old expression in business circles that holds “men are unsexed by failure, but women are unsexed by success.” For men, success confirms masculinity; for women, success disconfirms femininity – it’s seen as more of a tradeoff. To be taken seriously as a competent individual means minimizing, or even avoiding altogether, the trappings of femininity.” (252)

“In fact, “effortless perfection” may be the closest thing there is today to a “Girl Code.” … The appearance of effortlessness is the way young women reconcile such conflicting demands. “I just happen to be beautiful and brilliant, I can’t help it. Don’t hold it against me.” Effortless also counters the feminine taboo against competition. It’s okay to win, but not okay to try to win.” (254)

“Women sustain Guyland because Guyland seems to be populated by Rhett Butlers, and they are much cooler than the Ashley Wilkeses of the college campus – the guys who study hard, are considerate of their feelings, and listen to them. Those guys are a bit nerdy, good friendship material, but they don’t take your breath away. Better to latch on to the ones who treat you badly, with the hope that your love – and only your love – will transform him into a doting and attentive man, while he retains all the sexy guy-ness that drew you to him in the first place.” (258)

“And they’re right: they did sacrifice. For many men, the demands of being a provider and family man are filled with pressure and insecurity, having to bend to the will of moronic supervisors, placate mercurial clients, and kowtow to demanding bosses. And all for a family that barely appreciates them!” (276)

As always, if you liked the quotes, please buy the book here.