Quotes from Tom Rath

I first found out I had cancer on my eye and lost an eye to this disease when I was 16, and I've since had cancer in my kidneys and pancreas and a host of other areas.

Friendships are among the most fundamental of human needs.

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort.

Positive words are the glue that holds relationships together.

Positive defaults protect you from yourself - and that helps you to make decisions in the moment that are better for your long-term interests.

Positive defaults align our short-term decisions with our long-term interests. And we don't always do that.

If my colleagues stop eating donuts and are more active, it saves me money on next year's insurance premium, and I get to work with people who have more energy and creativity each day. Yet most organizations fail to make health a cultural priority. Instead, they treat healthcare like any other expense.

Ignoring negative things that need to be changed is destructive and does nothing to alleviate negativity. Instead, we should focus on the way we're treating other people in our brief interactions with them.

I'm a researcher, so I'm realistic that there's nothing I'm doing that's going to prevent me from getting cancer in the future. But I can slow it down.

I've seen so many people - loved ones and colleagues - who jump from one diet to the next, one exercise regimen to the next . I was trying to figure out what were some of the basic things that each of us can build into a lifestyle for good, instead of bouncing from one thing to the next.

Figure out what you really love doing and use your strengths on a daily basis.

When I was in kindergarten, I entered a competition and read 52 books in a week.

Followers have a very clear picture of what they want and need from the most influential leaders in their lives: trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

Team members care about one another, listen, share secrets, talk about the latest news, have heated arguments, are sometimes jealous of each other, and even cry together.

The real energy occurs in each connection between two people, which can bring about exponential returns.

No matter how healthy you are today, you can take specific actions to have more energy and live longer.

On average, spending time with your boss is consistently rated as the least pleasurable activity in a given day.

Followers need to see how things will get better and what that future might look like. Leaders need to build that foundation of stability, and hope sits on top of that.

The reality is that a person who has always struggled with numbers is unlikely to be a great accountant or statistician.

It's unrealistic to expect the person you go to for sage advice also to be the person you go out and have a good time with. And it's unlikely that he or she will be the same person who's pushing you and motivating you to do more every day, like a coach or manager does.

People who say they have a best friend at work are seven times as likely to be engaged in what they're doing. And if they don't have a best friend at work, the odds of being engaged are just 1 in 12.

The right choices over time greatly improve your odds of a long and healthy life.

There's a conventional wisdom that says that strategic thinking is much more important than relationship building, which doesn't seem to be nearly as highly valued as it should be, based on what some of the leaders that I've spoken with have said to me.

Exercise is not enough. Working out three times a week is not enough. Being active throughout the day is what keeps you healthy.