Quotes About Success

Finding bright spots, then, solves many different problems at once. That's no surprise; successful change efforts involve connecting all three parts of the framework: Rider, Elephant, and Path.

Don't obsess about the failures. Instead, investigate and clone the successes. Next, give direction to the Rider—both a start and a finish. Send him a destination postcard ("You'll be a third grader soon!"), and script his critical moves ("Buy 1% milk").

the pop-psychology literature is full of gurus urging you to visualize success. It turns out that a positive mental attitude isn't quite enough to get the job done. Maybe financial gurus shouldn't be telling us to imagine that we're filthy rich; instead, they should be telling us to replay the steps that led to our being poor.

Kotter and Cohen observed that, in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You're presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It might be a disturbing look at the problem, or a hopeful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it's something that hits you at the emotional level.

To pursue bright spots is to ask the question "What's working, and how can we do more of it?" Sounds simple, doesn't it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: "What's broken, and how do we fix it?

Fill pits, then build peaks.

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.

her successes came despite a lack of authority and resources.

Rescue—if people are facing a daunting task, and their instinct is to avoid it, you've got to break down the task. Shrink the change. Make the change small enough that they can't help but score a victory. Once

community for bright spots—successful efforts worth emulating.

has a problem focus when he needs a solution focus. If you are a manager, ask yourself: "What is the ratio of the time I spend solving problems to the time I spend scaling successes?

As a result, choosing between Plan A and Plan B is not a close call. Here's the astonishing finding from the Forrester data: If you Elevate the Positives (Plan B), you'll earn about 9 times more revenue than if you Eliminate the Negatives (Plan A). (8.8 times, to be precise.) Yet most executives are pursuing Plan A. (See the footnote for more on the methodology and an anticipated quibble.)II

Parents are often shocked, too, to hear that, once you control for aptitude, a person's lifetime earnings don't vary based on what college they attended. In other words, if you're smart enough to get into Yale, it doesn't really matter (from an income perspective) whether you go there or instead choose your much cheaper state university. The

When you engineer early successes, what you're really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort. It's Elephant fuel.

Once people are on the path and making progress, it's important to make their advances visible. With

When you've celebrated moving from 1 to 2, and then from 2 to 3, you gain confidence that you can make the next advance.

When you engineer early successes, what you're really doing is engineering hope. Hope is precious to a change effort.

A small win reduces importance ('this is no big deal'), reduces demands ('that's all that needs to be done'), and raises perceived skill levels ('I can do at least that')." All three of these factors will tend to make change easier and more self-sustaining.

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

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.

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

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

One Small Step Can Change Your Life, by Robert Maurer [Individual and organizational change]. If you liked the chapter on shrinking the change, this is your book. Maurer shows how small steps can lead to great change.