Quotations 2020-Jan-03

# We all share with Disraeli a common concern that 'life is too short to be little'. Yet our greatest frustration is that so much of life is just that. Perhaps more significant and dramatic than space exploration is an investigation of our use of time. 'What folly,' said John Howe, 'to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.' - I'm ok, you're ok (Thomas Harris)

# Everyone should be rich and famous because you should know that it is not what it takes to be happy. - Jim Carry

# "I have OCD on product-related issues," nano-manager Elon told the Journal. "I always see what's... wrong. Would you want that? When I see a car or a rocket or spacecraft, I only see what's wrong." "I never see what's right," he continued. "It's not a recipe for happiness."

# Quantity is not important, quality is, when speaking of personal relationships. - Dr Priti Puri

# Every incoming breath energizes your body and outgoing breath relaxes you. - Deepa Biswas

# Why count the trees, let's focus on the mangoes.

# Truly confident people often do this. They know they grow more by listening than talking. Obviously, they also captivate the talker. - Book: How To Talk To Anyone (Leil Lowndes)

# Comm-YOU-nication Is a Sign of Sanity.

Therapists calculate inmates of mental institutions say I and me twelve times more often than residents of the outside world. As patients’ conditions improve, the number of times they use the personal pronouns also diminishes. Continuing up the sanity scale, the fewer times you use I, the more sane you seem to your listeners. If you eavesdrop on big winners talking with each other, you’ll notice a lot more you than I in their conversation. The next technique concerns a way big winners are silently you-oriented. - Book: How To Talk To Anyone (Leil Lowndes)

# If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit. - Book: How To Talk To Anyone (Leil Lowndes)

# They say the pen is mightier than the sword. It is, but the tongue is even mightier than the pen. - Book: How To Talk To Anyone (Leil Lowndes)

# If you stepped into an elevator full of people speaking Hungarian, you might not recognize they were Hungarian unless you spoke their language. However, the minute you opened your mouth, they’d recognize you’re not Hungarian. It’s the same with the big cats. If you overhear several of them speaking, you might not recognize they’re big cats. However, the minute you opened your mouth they’d recognize you’re not a big cat, unless you spoke their lingo. - Book: How To Talk To Anyone (Leil Lowndes)

# “You are so beneath me I’m not going to even waste my words on you.” - Book: How To Talk To Anyone (Leil Lowndes)

# Remember, repeating an action makes a habit. Your habits create your character. And your character is your destiny. May success be your destiny. - Book: How To Talk To Anyone (Leil Lowndes)

# Ours is a society obsessed with the words and the deeds of power. We have it,lose it, need it, want it, and abuse it. However, power is not a thing to have, toabuse, to need, or to want. It is instead something that flows from a well cultivated self, a self that is assured and confident in its actions. Ultimately, thisis the only true power anyone has. - Adele B. Lynn (50 activities for emotional intelligence)

# Occasionally leaders have trouble understanding the rationale for using humor. Humor helps in two specific ways: (1) Tying our actions to something funny helps us remember our areas of growth. For example, one problem that I often have is my impetuous nature to have things immediately even thought there really is no rush. When I picture myself as the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, I make myself look absurd and am able to remember to ease up. (2) We need to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. Humor lightens up our errors and says, move on, and get past it. - Adele B. Lynn (50 activities for emotional intelligence)

# The path to becoming a better leader can take many different avenues. However, the important thing isn’t what path to take, but to get started and to keep moving. Emotionally intelligent leaders are always reevaluating to determine lessons learned. Emotionally intelligent leaders also have a method for assessing their learning. They do not mull over failures and become frozen, instead, they use the learning to become better. Likewise, they don’t rest on their success, but instead build past successes into future successes. - Adele B. Lynn (50 activities for emotional intelligence)

# Leaders who are confident and self-assured know what they value in termsof leadership. They know what is important and they have a well-developed personal philosophy of leadership. Reflection on the type of leader that one hopes to become is very importantto development. Reflection helps a leader to sort through what he or shebelieves is important. Emotionally competent leaders draw on these beliefsand because of this appear self-confident to those they lead. - Adele B. Lynn (50 activities for emotional intelligence)

Activity: Explain to the individual or group that it is important to reflect on leadership to determine the leadership philosophies that are important to the leader. Explain that reflection aids self-confidence and solidifies and validates what is most important to us as leaders. Also explain that emotionally intelligent leaders have well defined leadership philosophies that are a source of strength for the leader.

Time allocated for activity: 1 minute

Purpose: “The purpose of this exercise is to help you to reflect on the characteristics that you value most as a leader. By reflecting on what is important to you, you will gain confidence in your leadership decisions and will display that confidence to others. These questions help us look at leadership from a distance and from the point of view of others. They serve as a tool to help us articulate those qualities that we attribute to great leadership. Also, in the fast pace of the business world, we often are not permitted the luxury of reflection. Therefore, this exercise allows us the freedom to create ourphilosophy without the rush of getting the job done.” - Adele B. Lynn (50 activities for emotional intelligence)

# Activity: Explain to the individual or group that true power can only come from within, that ultimately, the leader cannot rely on external means or position as a source of power to be most effective. Also, explain that emotionally intelligent leaders have a very well-developed sense of interior power and are able to draw on this power for their most daunting leadership tasks. Interior power doesn’t fail because it is based on a strong sense of self. Discuss the notion that some leaders who lack interior power are often those that feel a strong sense of control, or those that often speak or shout the loudest. Also, discuss the notion that the most empowering leaders have a well-developed sense of interior power. - Adele B. Lynn (50 activities for emotional intelligence)

# Mastering self-management means developing three skills: (1) self-observation; (2) self-control; and (3) selective behavior. Whenever you act without thinking, you give up your power to choose and often move farther away from your goal. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# Positive relationships build political capital. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# ‘Geopolitics is all about leverage’ — Thomas Friedman (Marie G McIntyre, Secrets to winning at office politics, 2005)

# Never intentionally offend anyone at work. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# Getting a new boss can trigger a leverage earthquake and create a great deal of stress. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# The problem, as Aristotle's challenge to have onlyappropriate anger reminds us, is that more often than not our anger surges outof control. Benjamin Franklin put it well: "Anger is never without areason, but seldom a good one." - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# To achieve any goal, you must have sufficient power. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# “clean bathroom phenomenon” — no one will notice if you keep your bathroom clean, but everyone will notice if it’s dirty. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# Never advance your own interests by harming the business or hurting other people. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# ‘Scepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy’ - Napoleon Bonaparte (Marie G McIntyre, Secrets to winning at office politics, 2005)

# What typically escalates to conflict begins, as Varga puts it, with "not communicating, making assumptions, and jumping to conclusions, sending a 'hard' message in ways that make it tough for people to hear what you're saying." - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# There are four common causes of career destruction: (1) poorly controlled emotions; (2) a victim mentality; (3) self-centered goals; and (4) foolish reactions to change. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# The acronym AMISH sums up the five steps required to accomplish any personal behavior change: Awareness, Motivation, Identification, Substitution, and Habit Replacement. Even though this process has nothing to do with religious communities in Pennsylvania, perhaps the label will help you remember the steps. - Marie G McIntyre (Secrets to winning at office politics (2005))

# FROM THE BOOK "I'm OK, you're OK" BY THOMAS HARRIS

The Adult has a choice as to how it will respond to a stimulus in a complementary way that will protect both the relationship and the individuals in the relationship. This sometimes takes some very rapid (intuitive) computing:

The scene is a cocktail party. The transaction is initiated by a man who (Child) pinches a woman's bottom. She responds (Adult): 'My mother always told me to turn the other cheek.' Why is this response identified as Adult?

She could have responded Parent: 'You dirty old man!' or even slapped him.

Had she responded Child, she may have cried, become embarrassed, angry, shaky, or seductive.
Her response was Adult, however, in that she got a lot of information across in her one response.
1. I had a mother who always told me- - so you watch out!
2. Turn the other cheek -I know the Bible, too, so you see I'm not that kind of girl.
3. The humour of the play on words told him, 'My Child is getting a laugh, and you're ok, and I can take a joke'.
4. Transaction completed!

The person who always comes out 'smelling like a rose' does not do so accidentally. He has a high-speed Adult. As handy as this is in social situations, as above, it is not as critical there as in the home. You can walk away from a cocktail party. Walking away from home is something else.

The question arises: How can the Adult work better and faster? When someone knocks on the front door of life, who is going to get there first - the Parent, the Adult, or the Child?