Quotes from Chip Heath

Like a solutions-focused therapist, look for the flashes of success.

Starting small can help you overcome dread.

How can we make people care about our ideas? We get them to take off their Analytical Hats. We create empathy for specific individuals. We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about. We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities—not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be

The U.S. government has a 5 A Day campaign that's designed to encourage kids to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. McDonald's alone outspends this campaign by a ratio of 350 to 1.

We know the fast-food companies have big ad budgets, we know that they outspend healthy messages, but 20 times more, 143 times more, 350 times more? What's the big deal?

TO OOCH IS TO ask, Why predict something we can test? Why guess when we can know?

This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has "cursed" us.

the growth mindset can be taught and that it can change lives.

Focus on building habits. When you create habits, you get the new behavior "for free" (think of the stand-up meetings), and you're less likely to backslide.

Familiarity and memorability are often at odds.

The higher numbers get, the less sensitive we get to them, a phenomenon psychologists have labeled "psychophysical numbing." Moving on the number scale from 10 to 20 feels significant. But moving an equal distance from 340 to 350, even though it's the same increase, we feel nothing… that's "numbing.

That visit was a game changer

to create and sustain change, you've got to act more like a coach and less like a scorekeeper. You've got to embrace a growth mindset and instill it in your team.

dogged focus

he invented five milestones en route to the destination, each worthy of celebration.

Teach the growth mindset. Every success is going to involve rough patches.

McDonald's alone outspends the 5 A Day campaign by 350 to 1.

achieving success requires some failures along the way. Don't beat yourself up when those failures occur.

teacher was almost two times more likely to drop out than a student.

What separated Blakely from other women with the same idea was her persistence.

Priestley, a brilliant man with an astonishing variety of talents, did not lack for career options. He was employed as a minister for a Dissenting church in Leeds, England. ("Dissenting" meant that it was not affiliated with the Church of England, the state-sanctioned religion.) But

If a child sees a McDonald's commercial every single day, it would take them almost a year to see just one commercial about 5 A Day.

When the researchers compared whether process or analysis was more important in producing good decisions—those that increased revenues, profits, and market share—they found that "process mattered more than analysis—by a factor of six." Often a good process led to better analysis—for instance, by ferreting out faulty logic. But the reverse was not true: "Superb analysis is useless unless the decision process gives it a fair hearing.

At this "insight" stage, it's easy to get depressed, because insight doesn't always strike immediately.