• “EVERY MOMENT IN BUSINESS happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.”

I was later assured by two Botswanan game wardens that I was safer with 15 Cape buffalo staring at me than just one. They explained that since a Cape will almost always charge when it feels threatened, there’s less likelihood of one member of a grazing herd charging, because they each feel secure when chowing down with their buddies.

• “One of the most important price patterns looks like a cup with a handle when the outline of the cup is viewed from the side. Cup patterns can last from 7 weeks to as long as 65 weeks, but most of them last for three to six months. The usual correction from the absolute peak (the top of the cup) to the low point (the bottom of the cup) of this price pattern varies from around the 12% to 15% range to upwards of 33%. A strong price pattern of any type should always have a clear and definite price uptrend prior to the beginning of its base pattern. You should look for at least a 30% increase in price in the prior uptrend, together with improving relative strength and a very substantial increase in trading volume at some points in the prior uptrend. In most, but not all, cases, the bottom part of the cup should be rounded and give the appearance of a “U” rather than a very narrow “V.” This characteristic allows the stock time to proceed through a needed natural correction,
  

• “Psychologist and zoologist David Barash feels that our intolerance of the handicapped comes in part from an ancient impulse to distance ourselves from those who may be carrying one of the primary killers of pre-modern men and animals—infectious disease.10 There may be merit to his argument. But I suspect the urge to impose physical uniformity springs from the principles which turn a group into a complex adaptive system, a collective intelligence, a learning machine.”

• One of the things the author learned early on as she switched careers to become a professional poker player is to understand what a bet is: a decision about an uncertain future. Treating decisions as bets allowed her to find learning opportunities in uncertain environments, learn from results, avoid common decision traps, and afforded her the opportunity to make decisions with better control of her emotions.
  
• The premise of this book is that Thinking in bets will allow you to make better decisions:
  • Separate the decision quality from the outcome quality
  • It will also introduce you to the power of saying “I’m not sure”
  • It will enable you to recall your past self and combine that with your present self to make less-emotional decisions
  • Learn how to map out the future
  • Become less reactive
  • find other truth-seekers and exchange knowledge with them to become a better decision maker.

• A habit is a routine or behavior that you do on a regular basis – and, often, automatically
• Building habits – even if they’re minor ones, gives you a sense of control in your life. They ripple into other areas of life.
• Changes that seem unimportant and small will compound into remarkable results as you stick with them over the years.

• “From this book, you’ll learn how to sharpen your own inherent intelligence gathering, strategic and critical thinking, decision making, and formulation of inquiry skills using the amazing computer between your ears. Unlike other books by psychologists or reporters, though, this one will not just tell you what your brain can do or how people are using theirs to the limit, it will show you.”
• “Learning to see what matters can change your world as well. I invite you to open your eyes and see how. I bet you’ll discover you didn’t even know they were closed.”

Continue reading →

• “Without a doubt, Harrison was tough. As an employee, if you didn’t get with the program, you were gone. You got a chance to mend your ways, but only one. If you were dragging down the team, he believed, the consequences for the company could be a disastrous spiral that would be bad for everybody. But this was a man for whom an efficiently operating railroad was like the performance of a Mozart symphony by one of the world’s great orchestras. It’s what he loved and what accounted for his peerless skills. That love, however, made him vulnerable to emotional wounds, as it frequently does to true believers who throw every ounce of their being into what they do.”

Continue reading →

• “No matter how hard she tries to only look at her notebook, the dying children’s parents always start to talk with Amy. Sometimes she’s even doing Kumon. But the parents of the dying children interrupt her and tell her she looks just like a little doll. Everyone says the same thing, that she looks like a doll. Amy feels funny when they say it, a little sick to her stomach. She doesn’t really know what they mean. Why would she look like a doll when she’s a person? Or do they just mean she doesn’t have any scratches on her skin like the dying kids do? She doesn’t ask their mom because their mom seems annoyed when people say it when she’s there. From this she deduces that she is right to feel uncomfortable.Their mom takes her to see the babies and tells her about when she was born. Amy was born early because their mom stepped on a snake in the garage and got scared, and that induced the labor. Because of the snake Amy had to stay in the hospital a little bit longer, in a cradle just like these ones. Amy asks if the snake got away, hoping the answer is yes. The answer is no. Amy, liberated by a snake that died, feels guilty and important. Their mom takes her to the cafeteria for lunch but gets mad at her in the middle and goes back down to the pediatric ward without her. She doesn’t give Amy any instructions on what to do next, so Amy decides to find the maternity ward by herself. She remembers never eat soggy waffles, and anyway, she remembers where it is. She stands at the window for a long time, watching the babies sleep. She fogs the glass up with her breath. She draws a tiny heart in the mist with her fingertip, and she loves the squeaking sound this makes, so she moves a little to the left and fogs up the glass again, on purpose, and draws a slightly bigger heart. Then she gets in trouble for disappearing, but it is worth it.”
  Continue reading →

• “Twelve shattered myths:
  • It takes a great idea to start a great company: Like the parable of the tortoise and the hare, visionary companies get off to t a slow start but often win the long race. Some visionary companies started without any specific idea. They were significantly less likely to have early entrepreneurial success than the comparison companies.
  • Visionary companies require charismatic and great leaders. CEOs of visionary companies focused not on being time-tellers but rather on building clocks.
  • Visionary companies exist to make profit/maximize shareholder returns: While making money and turning a profit is as important to them as blood and water is to life, it is not the end goal. They have a core ideology – core values and sense of purpose beyond just making money.

Continue reading →