Quotes from Chip Heath

these were not stories about sudden realizations. These were stories about action.

you need quick wins to get fired up. And getting fired up is super-important.

trainers set a behavioral destination and then use "approximations," meaning that they reward each tiny step toward the destination.

The point of the Clinics is not to wow you with our creative genius, and it's fortunate for readers and authors alike that this is not the goal, because we are not creative geniuses. The point is simply to model the process of making ideas stickier. In contrast to traditional disclaimers, this is something you should try at home. Think about each message and consider how you would improve it using the principles in the book.

The larger point is that most recognition should be personal, not programmatic.

Stay alert to the promise that moments hold. These moments do not need to be "produced.

Kahneman says that we are quick to jump to conclusions because we give too much weight to the information that's right in front of us, while failing to consider the information that's just offstage.

The Paradox of Choice

Sarasvathy, the professor, found that this preference for testing, rather than planning, was one of the most striking differences between entrepreneurs and corporate executives.

Without clear priorities to draw on, the decision will be made idiosyncratically, depending on the employee's mood at the moment.

Knowledge does not change behavior

In the last few chapters, we've seen that a credible idea makes people believe. An emotional idea makes people care. And in this chapter we'll see that the right stories make people act.

Notice the similarities here: The recognition is spontaneous—not part of a scheduled feedback session—and it is targeted at particular behaviors.

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage," became the most e-mailed article on the Times website in 2006, and it led to a book on the same topic.

that's the charge for all of us: to defy the forgettable flatness of everyday work and life by creating a few precious moments.

The answer may sound strange: You need to create the expectation of failure—not the failure of the mission itself, but failure en route.

Odds of winning Powerball: 1 in 292,201,338 Imagine having to guess which second of a day someone is thinking of—any date, hour, minute, and second from the time they're born to the time they turn 9. If you match, you win the lottery prize. The jackpot is yours. All you have to do is think of the resident of the United States whose name is written down over there on that folded piece of paper. (Hint: they are older than the age of 10.)

the value of asking more questions and listening to the answers.

Finding bright spots, then, solves many different problems at once.

Putting a number in a day-to-day context is critical. For instance, years ago, Cisco Systems was contemplating whether to install a wireless network for its employees (a no-brainer today, but not at the time). The company had calculated that it would cost roughly $500 per year, per employee, to maintain the network. Was that worth it? Hard to say, since we don't have much intuition about $500 yearly expenses.

Reinforcement is the secret to getting past the first step of your long journey and on to the second, third, and hundredth steps. And that's a problem, because most of us are terrible rein-forcers. We are quicker to grouse than to praise.

What if we didn't just remember the defining moments of our lives but made them?

The Rider loves to contemplate and analyze, and, making matters worse, his analysis is almost always directed at problems rather than at bright spots. (You can probably recall a conversation with a friend who agonized for hours over a particular relationship problem. But can you remember an instance when a friend spent even a few minutes analyzing why something was working so well?)

We need to be looking for bright spots—however tiny!—and rewarding them.