Quotes from Ellen J. Langer

when new technology for cardiac surgery was introduced, those medical teams with leaders who minimized concern for status differences—in other words, were willing implicitly to admit they didn't have all the answers and take advice from underlings—had the most effective communication, learned the most, and found the transition the easiest.

A painting is never finished—it simply stops in interesting places. PAUL GARDNER

Put a frog into a pot of water and gradually turn up the heat. The frog will keep adjusting to the increasing temperature until, finally, it dies. Put a frog into a pot of boiling water, though, and the frog will immediately try to jump out of the pot. We too notice the difference when things change drastically.

If you don't know where you are going, you keep doing something because you enjoy it. You keep doing it, making choices, and noticing the consequences until it's pleasing to you and you want to stop.

the promise of a big payoff diminishes our appreciation of the present situation

As soon as we agree to accept a positive evaluation as reason to feel good about ourselves, however, we open the door for the damaging consequences of perceived failure.

It's harder to begin something new if we focus on what it is going to be, and in doing so cut ourselves off from the possibilities that arise in the doing.

to be positive would be to accept positive statements by others, that is, compliments, but as we've seen, to do so sets us up for negative punishment.

The way we first take in information (that is, mindfully or mindlessly) determines how we will use it later.

If we don't begin with a rigid plan, it is hard to make a mistake.

Well-meant protectiveness undermines autonomy... When a will to act is thwarted, it atrophies into a wish to be taken care of.

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. JAMES JOYCE

The Medusa and the Snail,