Quotes from Chip Heath

Both women experienced moments of self-insight sparked by "stretching." To stretch is to place ourselves in situations that expose us to the risk of failure.

created this framework to be useful for people who don't have scads of authority or resources. Some people can get their way by fiat. CEOs, for instance, can

A sense of purpose seems to spark "above and beyond" behaviors.

PRINCIPLE 1: SIMPLICITY How do we find the essential core of our ideas? A successful defense lawyer says, "If you argue ten points, even if each is a good point, when they get back to the jury room they won't remember any.

this message is that skin damage is cumulative and irreversible. So we've rewritten the message to stress that point and eliminate nonessential information. We've done this to illustrate the process of forced prioritization; we've had to eliminate some interesting stuff (such as the references to melanin) in order to let the core shine through. We've tried to emphasize the core in a couple of ways. First, we've unburied the lead—putting

To make progress toward a goal, whether it's noble or crass, requires the energy and drive of the Elephant. And

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants each serving a town of 60,000 people. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

Self-understanding comes slowly. One of the few ways to accelerate it—to experience more crystallizing moments—is to stretch for insight.

But isn't the use of a template or a checklist confining? Surely we're not arguing that a "color by numbers" approach will yield more creative work than a blank-canvas approach? Actually, yes, that's exactly what we're saying.

Novelty even changes our perception of time.

WHEN LIFE OFFERS US a "this or that" choice, we should have the gall to ask whether the right answer might be "both.

You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options. • You analyze your options. But the confirmation bias leads you to gather self-serving information. • You make a choice. But short-term emotion will often tempt you to make the wrong one. • Then you live with it. But you'll often be overconfident about how the future will unfold.

Fill pits, then build peaks.

This and that." Often, for example, we'll get stuck in a mindset of prevention OR promotion. If we can do both, seeking out options that minimize harm AND maximize opportunity, we are more likely to uncover our full spectrum of choices.

It's as though the leaders aspire to create a complaint-free service rather than an extraordinary one.

But let's not confuse memorability with wisdom.

sound of the orchestra but the intimacy of chamber music.

In this chapter, we've seen that what looks like a "character problem" is often correctible when you change the environment. The

The pros-and-cons approach is familiar. It is commonsensical. And it is also profoundly flawed.

You cannot choose any of the current options you're considering. What else could you

Moments that break the script are critical for organizational change. They provide a demarcation point between the "old way" and the "new way.

What happened here is decision paralysis. More options, even good ones, can freeze us and make us retreat to the default plan, which in this case was a painful and invasive hip-replacement surgery. This behavior clearly is not rational, but it is human.

Simple tweaks of the Path can lead to dramatic changes in behavior.

Smart enough to get into Yale. Economists studied students who had been admitted to two schools of higher and lower prestige but decided to attend the school with lower prestige. Estimated sacrifice in lifetime earnings from attending the less prestigious school: none.