Quotations 2020-Jan-02

# A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.’ ‘All this she must possess,’ added Darcy, ‘and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.’ - Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

# Road to $5 trillion economy: Former RBI Governor C Rangarajan doesn't see much hope -- "Today, our economy is about $2.7 trillion and we are talking about doubling this over the next five years at $5 trillion. The required rate of growth to achieve that level is in excess of 9 percent per annum. Reaching $5 trillion by 2025 is simply out of question. You have lost two years. This year it is going to be under-6 percent growth and next year it may be about 7 percent. After that, the economy may pick up," he said while addressing a function organised by IBS-ICFAI Business School. He also said that if at all the growth target is achieved, our per capita income will be at $3,600, up from the present $1,800, leaving us in the low-middle income country bracket. "The definition of a developed country is the one whose per capita income is $12,000. It will take 22 years for us to reach that level provided we grow at 9 percent per annum," he said. (Dec 2019)

# Meditation is about love, gratitude and forgiveness. - Dr Priti Puri

# What we resist, persists. – Carl Jung

# Read and be better or don't read and just be.

# Money doesn't buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Lamborghini.

# Overall, Berkshire and its long-term shareholders benefit from a sinking stock market much as a regular purchaser of food benefits from declining food prices. So when the market plummets-as it will from time to time-neither panic nor mourn. It's good news for Berkshire. (Essays of Warren Buffett)

# Albert Einstein once wrote on a blackboard: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

# The army perfects the march past with great precision and practice but at the time of war they must all act through the greater lessons of parade than conduct a parade. - Nayana Kaushal

# Elon Musk 'nano manages' - The Tesla CEO freely calls himself a 'nano-manager', meaning he is far more hands-on and involved than the average company boss. "I have OCD on product-related issues," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I never see what's right," he said. "It's not a recipe for happiness."

# Facebook is for shipping product fast, Google for is shipping at scale and Apple is for shipping with perfection.

# When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. - Ned Stark, Game of Thrones

# "Emotional learning is lifelong." - Emotional Intelligence (Why it matters more than IQ), Daniel Goleman (Chapter 13)

# Psychologist Haim Ginott, the grandfather of effective-communication programs, recommended that the best formula for a complaint is "XYZ": "When you did X, it made me feel Y, and I'd rather wish you did Z instead." For example: "When you didn't call to tell me you were going to be late for our dinner appointment, I felt unappreciated and angry. I wish you'd call to let me know you'll be late" instead of "You're a thoughtless, self-centered bastard".

# Snyder defines "hope" with more specificity as "believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be." - Emotional Intelligence (Why it matters more than IQ), Daniel Goleman

# The three Rs are basic skills taught in schools: reading, writing and arithmetic. 

# Benjamin Franklin put it well: "Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one." - Emotional Intelligence (Why it matters more than IQ), Daniel Goleman

# “There’s only one basic principle of self-defense, you must apply the most effective weapon, as soon as possible, to the most vulnerable target” – Bruce Lee

# Politics is always about two or more people, or organizations, and their relationship with one another. Politics is the way that people living in groups make decisions.  
URL: https://www.ru.nl/politicalscience/political-science/what-political-0/
URL: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics

# Remember, as a quotable notable once said, “No man would listen to you talk if he didn’t know it was his turn next.” (Book: How to talk to anyone - Leil Lowndes)

# Scientists generate new ideas.

# "Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero" 

# Whomever you have been upset with and have not spoken or met in long time, simply go and give them a hug to break the ice. - Himanshu Panwar

# The basic idea to remember is: A dollar today is worth more than a dollar received in the future.

# When you forgive someone, you both benefit. Bitterness is a heavy burden. As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, mercy is "twice blessed. It blesses him that gives and him that takes."

# Forgive, forget, have faith and ignore.

# In tests with over seven thousand people in the United States and eighteen other countries, the benefits of being able to read feelings from nonverbal cues included being better adjusted emotionally, more popular, more outgoing, and—perhaps not surprisingly—more sensitive.

# I want nothing, I do nothing, I am nothing. - Deepa Biswas, Art of Living, on setting up mind before meditation

# "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee" is one of the most famous lines in English literature.

# This suggests that when the emotional brain is driving the body with a strong reaction—the heat of anger, say—there can be little or no empathy. Empathy requires enough calm and receptivity so that the subtle signals of feeling from another person can be received and mimicked by one's own emotional brain. - Emotional Intelligence (Why it matters more than IQ), Daniel Goleman

# "Comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there."

# "Let it all go, let us see what stays!"

# Salovey subsumes Gardner's personal intelligences in his basic definition of emotional intelligence, expanding these abilities into five main domains:
1. Knowing one's emotions. Self-awareness—recognizing a feeling as it happens —is the keystone of emotional intelligence. As we will see in Chapter 4, the ability to monitor feelings from moment to moment is crucial to psychological insight and self-understanding. An inability to notice our true feelings leaves us at their mercy. People with greater certainty about their feelings are better pilots of their lives, having a surer sense of how they really feel about personal decisions from whom to marry to what job to take.

2. Managing emotions. Handling feelings so they are appropriate is an ability that builds on self-awareness. Chapter 5 will examine the capacity to soothe oneself, to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom, or irritability—and the consequences of failure at this basic emotional skill. People who are poor in this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life's setbacks and upsets.

3. Motivating oneself. As Chapter 6 will show, marshaling emotions in the service of a goal is essential for paying attention, for self-motivation and mastery, and for creativity. Emotional self-control— delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness—underlies accomplishment of every sort. And being able to get into the "flow" state enables outstanding performance of all kinds. People who have this skill tend to be more highly productive and effective in whatever they undertake.

4. Recognizing emotions in others. Empathy, another ability that builds on emotional self-awareness, is the fundamental "people skill." Chapter 7 will investigate the roots of empathy, the social cost of being emotionally tone-deaf, and the reasons empathy kindles altruism. People who are empathic are more attuned to the subtle social signals that indicate what others need or want. This makes them better at callings such as the caring professions, teaching, sales, and management.

5. Handling relationships. The art of relationships is, in large part, skill in managing emotions in others. Chapter 8 looks at social competence and incompetence, and the specific skills involved. These are the abilities that undergird popularity, leadership, and interpersonal effectiveness. People who excel in these skills do well at anything that relies on interacting smoothly with others; they are social stars.

- Emotional Intelligence (Why it matters more than IQ), Daniel Goleman

# Emotional intelligence: abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope. - Emotional Intelligence (Why it matters more than IQ), Daniel Goleman

# The Organizational Facts of Life
• OFOL 1: Organizations are not democracies.
• OFOL 2: Some people have more power than others.
• OFOL 3: Virtually all decisions are subjective.
• OFOL 4: Your boss has control over much of your life.
• OFOL 5: Fairness is an impossible goal.
- Secrets to winning at office politics, Marie G McIntyre (2005)

# Political Intelligence requires a thorough understanding of the dynamics of leverage, which simply means your ability to get others to do what you want. - Secrets to winning at office politics, Marie G McIntyre (2005)

# “If we believe the task we are doing is not important, it is difficult, if not impossible, to give our full degree of commitment to that task. - Adele B. Lynn, Eileen Klockars - 50 activities for emotional intelligence (2000)

In addition to the task being important, it is our job as leaders to create the kind of environment that also helps foster a sense of importance in the people doing the job.” - Adele B. Lynn, Eileen Klockars - 50 activities for emotional intelligence (2000)

# Statistically over 70% of what we communicate is nonverbal according to a UCLA study in 1996. - Adele B. Lynn, Eileen Klockars - 50 activities for emotional intelligence (2000)

# Think about a leader who has or had great vision and clearly and cleverly articulated it. Some examples might be:
• Martin Luther King, whose vision was to nonviolently create opportunities and equality for people of color.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose vision was to put the people of America back to work and move the country out of the Great Depression.
• Fred Smith, of Federal Express, whose vision was to deliver packages anywhere in the United States overnight.
• Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines, whose vision of having fun and making a profit placed Southwest Airlines at the top of the heap.

# THE PEOPLE QUESTION
Energy problems are engineering problems, so you would expect to find nerds running clean-tech companies. You’d be wrong: the ones that failed were run by shockingly nontechnical teams. These salesman-executives were good at raising capital and securing government subsidies, but they were less good at building products that customers wanted to buy. At Founders Fund, we saw this coming. The most obvious clue was sartorial: cleantech executives were running around wearing suits and ties. This was a huge red flag, because real technologists wear T-shirts and jeans. So we instituted a blanket rule: pass on any company whose founders dressed up for pitch meetings. Maybe we still would have avoided these bad investments if we had taken the time to evaluate each company’s technology in detail. But the team insight—never invest in a tech CEO that wears a suit—got us to the truth a lot faster. The best sales is hidden. There’s nothing wrong with a CEO who can sell, but if he actually looks like a salesman, he’s probably bad at sales and worse at tech. - Zero to one, Peter Thiel

# Hard work and fun is what life is all about. Long term success will never come if profit is the aim. - Screw it, let's do it (Richard Branson)

# People with vision do die. Mountain climbers fall, and test pilots crash. - Screw it, let's do it (Richard Branson)

# Well, as they say, when you wait long enough ordinary grapes mature into fine wine.

# Like a colleague of mine was saying, you need to keep the sails open and then wait for the wind to blow.

# Nothing shapes your future as much as the house in which you are born. That's the most significant predictor of your likelihood of success.