Reasoning does create a paradox: it leads both to more rule following and more rebelliousness. By
Overall, the evidence suggests that liking continues to increase as people are exposed to an idea between ten and twenty times, with additional exposure still useful for more complex ideas. Interestin...
Originality is not a fixed trait. It is a free choice. Lincoln wasn’t born with an original personality. Taking on controversy wasn’t programmed into his DNA; it was an act of conscious will. As the g...
Justifying the default system serves a soothing function. It’s an emotional painkiller: If the world is supposed to be this way, we don’t need to be dissatisfied with it. But acquiescence also robs us...
It seems counterintuitive, but the more altruistic your attitude, the more benefits you will gain from the relationship, writes LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. If you set out to help others, he explain...
I ask if you’re planning to vote, you don’t feel like I’m trying to influence you. It’s an innocent query, and instead of resisting my influence, you reflect on it.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. —Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Se...
As Samuel Johnson purportedly wrote, The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. Takers
Along with providing time to generate novel ideas, procrastination has another benefit: it keeps us open to improvisation. When we plan well in advance, we often stick to the structure we’ve created,...
According to Brian Uzzi, a management professor at Northwestern University, networks come with three major advantages: private information, diverse skills, and power. By developing a strong network, p...
Matchers: their core values emphasize fairness, equality, and reciprocity. When takers violate these principles, matchers in their networks believe in an eye for an eye, so they want to see justice se...
Highly successful people have three things in common: motivation, ability, and opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need a combination of hard work, talent, and luck.
Giving was the only characteristic to predict performance: it didn’t matter whether the salespeople were conscientious or carefree, extroverted or introverted, emotionally stable or anxious, and open-...
You gotta kiss a lot of frogs, he often told his team, before you find a prince. In fact, frog kissing was one of his mantras: he encouraged his engineers to try out many variations to increase their...
You don’t have to be first to be an original, and the most successful originals don’t always arrive on schedule. They are fashionably late to the party. The
When you meet people, says former Apple evangelist and Silicon Valley legend Guy Kawasaki, regardless of who they are, you should be asking yourself, ‘How can I help the other person?
When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be. —attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
When takers win, there’s usually someone else who loses. Research shows that people tend to envy successful takers and look for ways to knock them down a notch.
We tend to privilege the lone genius who generates ideas that enthrall us, or change our world. According to research by a trio of Stanford psychologists, Americans see independence as a symbol of str...
They’re constrained by a shortage of people who excel at choosing the right novel ideas. The