Secret of Amazon’s Success
We don’t have one big advantage so we have to weave a rope of many small advantages.
— Jeff Bezos
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Stepping Stones
ByHeather
Whatever you’re doing now is just a stepping-stone to the next project or adventure. Any rut you get into is one you can get yourself out of.
— Timothy Ferriss, 4-Hour Work Week
Flattery is the Cinnabon of Human Interaction
ByHeather
Rob Long is a brilliant television writer who offers a weekly five minute commentary on KCRW. He outdid himself this week.
The very best thing about flattery is how incredibly flattering it is. If you’re on the receiving end of a nice blast of “you’re so wonderful” it barely matters – what am I saying, it doesn’t matter in the least! – if it’s true. If you really are wonderful. If the personal telling you how wonderful you are even thinks you are wonderful.
What’s important is that the person delivering the flattering cascade thinks you’re worth the butter. It’s like a kubuki moment: I’m probably lying, you know I’m probably lying, but you’re the kind of person it’s worth lying to.
And if you’re on the other side, if you’re delivering the flattery, it’s amazing how instantly it works, how immediately the recipient begins to glow and swan around. It’s like a sugar rush. It’s cheap, it rots your teeth and makes you fat, but for a few moments, you feel invincible. Flattery, done correctly, is the Cinnabon of human interaction.
Klipstein’s Third Law of General Engineering
ByHeather
Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
Guard Your Spare Moments
ByHeather
Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Three Hardest Tasks
ByHeather
The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements but moral acts:
- to return love for hate
- to include the excluded
- and to say “I was wrong.”
— Sydney J. Harris, Pieces of Eight