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0453874
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simplification often makes the difference between good and amazing.
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Shane Snow |
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9431a3b
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OFTEN, THE THING HOLDING us back from success is our inability to say no.
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Shane Snow |
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ef093d0
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THINK OF THE WAY a stretch of grass becomes a road. At first, the stretch is bumpy and difficult to drive over. A crew comes along and flattens the surface, making it easier to navigate. Then, someone pours gravel. Then tar. Then a layer of asphalt. A steamroller smooths it; someone paints lines. The final surface is something an automobile can traverse quickly. Gravel stabilizes, tar solidifies, asphalt reinforces, and now we don't need to..
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Shane Snow |
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d2b7206
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Being able to pick and read good waves is almost more important than surfing well.
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inspirational
enterpreneurship
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Shane Snow |
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6ecbb68
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trouble with moonwalkers and billionaires is when they arrive at the top, their momentum often stops. If they don't manage to find something to parlay, they turn into the kid on the jungle gym who just hangs from the ring. Not coincidentally, this is the same reason that only one-third of Americans are happy at their jobs. When there's no forward momentum in our careers, we get depressed, too.
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Shane Snow |
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84910f4
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No matter the medium or method, giving is the timeless smartcut for harnessing superconnectors and creating serendipity.
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Shane Snow |
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841c32d
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Lateral thinking doesn't replace hard work; it eliminates unnecessary cycles.
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Shane Snow |
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fd3e98c
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Creativity comes easier within constraints.
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Shane Snow |
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98827c5
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My whole thing was, if I can put in 5 percent of the effort of somebody getting an A, and I can get a C minus, that's amazing," he explains. "It's certainly good enough, right? [Then] I can take the other 95 percent of the time and invest it in something I really care about."
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Shane Snow |
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4e6df52
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We're multiplying our capabilities as a civilization and yet we still accept the notion that important societal progress, like combating inequality and crime--or even innovating in government and medicine--must take generations. Despite leaps in what we can do, most of us still follow comfortable, pre-prescribed paths. We work hard, but hardly question whether we're working smart. On
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Shane Snow |
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e4d8803
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Indeed, equal amounts of research support both assertions: that mentorship works and that it doesn't. Mentoring programs break down in the workplace so often that scholarly research contradicts itself about the value of mentoring at all, and prompts Harvard Business Review articles with titles such as "Why Mentoring Doesn't Work." The mentorship slip is illustrated well by family businesses: 70 percent of them fail when passed to the second..
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Shane Snow |
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c68fdd4
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There's a big difference, in other words, between having a mentor guide our practice and having a mentor guide our journey. OUR TYPICAL PARADIGM FOR mentorship is that of a young, enterprising worker sitting across from an elderly executive at an oak desk, engaging in Q& A about how to succeed at specific challenges. On the other hand, a smartcut-savvy mentee approaches things a bit differently. She develops personal relationships with her ..
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Shane Snow |
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7e23d48
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Aristotle was privileged to study at Plato's Academy, but some kid on the other side of the world was probably just as promising as young Aristotle and never got the mentorship. How can building deep relationships with master mentors be a smartcut if it hinges on our being lucky enough to know the master? Hip-hop icon Jay-Z gives us a clue in one of his lyrics, "We were kids without fathers . . . so we found our fathers on wax and on the st..
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Shane Snow |
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e270fc4
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By itself, one small win may seem unimportant," writes Dr. Karl Weick in a seminal paper for American Psychologist in 1984. "A series of wins at small but significant tasks, however, reveals a pattern that may attract allies, deter opponents, and lower resistance to subsequent proposals." "Once a small win has been accomplished," Weick continues, "forces are set in motion that favor another small win."
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Shane Snow |
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49ecddc
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Playing, it turns out, makes us less afraid of cognitive friction.
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Shane Snow |
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ea1c5c0
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The important ingredient, the thing that gets teams into The Zone, is not peace and harmony and sameness--it's engaging the tension between their perspectives, heuristics, ideas, and differences.
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Shane Snow |
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0114e8b
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Michelle Phan grew up in California with her Vietnamese parents. The classic American immigrant story of the impoverished but hardworking parents who toil to create a better life for the next generation was marred, in Phan's case, by her father's gambling addiction. The Phan clan moved from city to city, state to state, downsizing and recapitalizing and dodging creditors and downsizing some more. Eventually, Phan found herself sleeping on a..
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Shane Snow |
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bfcc3c5
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20% Time" is not Google indigenous. It was borrowed from a company formerly known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, aka 3M, which allowed its employees to spend 15 percent of their work hours experimenting with new ideas, no questions asked. 3M's "15% Time" brought us, among other things, Post-it Notes. Behind this concept (which is meticulously outlined in an excellent book by Ryan Tate called The 20% Doctrine) is the idea of constant..
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Shane Snow |
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bd55c69
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Good stories surprise us. They make us think and feel. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that a PowerPoint crammed with bar graphs never can.
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Shane Snow |
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cadb48e
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We're multiplying our capabilities as a civilization and yet we still accept the notion that important societal progress, like combating inequality and crime--or even innovating in government and medicine--must take generations.
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Shane Snow |
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34f2803
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True success is not defined by how much money do I make, how well do I speak, how well do I deal with the subjects I deal with," he says. "But how great of a father I am."
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Shane Snow |
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0eb4b10
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New ideas emerge when you question the assumptions upon which a problem is based (in this case: it's that you can only help one person).
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Shane Snow |
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12ff8b4
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The most popular post on Eli Pariser's blog on the day after he launched it was about Gandhi. Twelve people shared it. The post told the story of the talisman the revered Indian leader once gave to his grandson Arun, which listed the seven "blunders" he believed led to violence: Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Religion without sacrifice. Poli..
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Shane Snow |
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2f26bf4
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Research from Brunel University shows that chess students who trained with coaches increased on average 168 points in their national ratings versus those who didn't. Though long hours of deliberate practice are unavoidable in the cognitively complex arena of chess, the presence of a coach for mentorship gives players a clear advantage. Chess prodigy Joshua Waitzkin (the subject of the film Searching for Bobby Fischer) for example, accelerat..
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Shane Snow |
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ea18b83
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The key to intellectual humility is increasing the cognitive diversity inside our own heads.
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Shane Snow |
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c91aae2
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FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS, people from every corner of the planet have flocked to New York City for the reason Frank Sinatra immortalized: to prove they could "make it." The allure, the prestige, the struggle to survive, breeds a brand, an image of the city that ripples out to the rest of the world. Sinatra sang about proving himself to himself. "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere." New York was the yardstick. New York has indeed bec..
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Shane Snow |
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4824900
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There are no secrets in science.
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C. P. Snow |
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94a1f3b
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As man now is, God once was:As God now is, man may be.
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Lorenzo Snow |
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ad1cdf3
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Where's the snowThat fell the year that's fled--where's the snow?
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Snow |
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08da822
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A little snow, tumbled about, anon becomes a mountain.
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Snow |
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b3918ec
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For thou wilt lie upon the wings of nightWhiter than new snow on a raven's back.
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Snow |
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1de4b81
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Lawn as white as driven snow.
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Snow |