kindle quotes

  • Articulating a personal challenge in the form of a question has other benefits. It allows you to be bold and adventurous because anyone can question anything. You don’t have to be a recognized expert; you just have to be willing to say, I’m going to venture forth into the world with my question and see what I find.

    As you do this, you’re in a strong position to build ideas and attract support. Because, whereas people are more likely to ignore or challenge you when you come at them with answers, they almost can’t resist advising or helping you to answer a great question. All of this helps to build momentum. Questions (the right ones, anyway) are good at generating momentum, which is why change-makers so often use them as a starting point.

    — A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas by Warren Berger

  • When you know the simple movements so well that you can perform them without thinking, you are free to pay attention to more advanced details. In this way, habits are the backbone of any pursuit of excellence.

    — Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

  • To think is to rehearse action without triggering it. Thought involves the excitation of motor neurons, but below the threshold at which the actions those neurons enervate would be emitted. In computer parlance, thought is virtual behavior.

    — Genomes, Menomes, Wenomes: Neuroscience and Human Dignity by Robert W. Fuller

  • But the principle of constantly expanding your experience, both personally and vicariously, does matter tremendously in any idea-producing job. Make no mistake about that. Another point to encourage you. No doubt you have seen people who seem to spark ideas—good ideas—right off the “top of their heads,” without ever going through all this process that I have described.

    Sometimes you have only seen the “Eureka! I have it!” stage takes place. But sometimes you have also seen the fruits of long discipline in the practices here advocated. This discipline produces a mind so well stocked, and so quick at discerning relationships, as to be capable of such fast production. Still, another point I might elaborate on a little is about words. We tend to forget that words are, themselves, ideas. They might be called ideas in a state of suspended animation. When the words are mastered the ideas tend to come alive again.

    — A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Young

  • Habits are behavioral autopilot, and that’s why they’re such a critical tool for leaders. Leaders who can instill habits that reinforce their teams’ goals are essentially making progress for free. They’ve changed behavior in a way that doesn’t draw down the Rider’s reserves of self-control. Habits will form inevitably, whether they’re formed intentionally or not. You’ve probably created lots of team habits unwittingly. If your staff meetings always start out with genial small talk, then you’ve created a habit. You’ve designed your meeting autopilot to yield a few minutes of warm-up small talk. The hard question for a leader is not how to form habits but which habits to encourage.

    — Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath, Dan Heath

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