Quotes About Adaptation

change is inevitable, and when it happens, the wisest response is not to wail or whine but to suck it up and deal with

Sales and theater have much in common. Both take guts. Salespeople pick up the phone and call strangers; actors walk onto the stage in front of them. Both invite rejection—for salespeople, slammed doors, ignored calls, and a pile of nos; for actors, a failed audition, an unresponsive audience, a scathing review. And both have evolved along comparable trajectories.

If you're an educator, know that all times are not created equal:

The problem is that our corporate, government, and education cultures are configured for the 75 or 80 percent of people who are larks or third birds. Owls are like left-handers in a right-handed world—forced to use scissors and writing desks and catcher's mitts designed for others. How they respond is the final piece of the puzzle in divining the rhythms of the day.

a "grouplet"—a small, self-organized team that has almost no budget and even less authority, but that tries to change something within the company.

Good improvisers seem telepathic; everything looks prearranged. This is because they accept all offers made."9

innovation and creativity are greatest when we are not at our best

inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise their capacities, to explore, and to learn.

The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. It has helped our species evolve, lifted our living standards, and enhanced our daily lives. The capacity to sell isn't some unnatural adaptation to the merciless world of commerce. It is part of who we are. As you're about to see, if I've moved you to turn the page, selling is fundamentally human.

I used to believe that the best way to overcome a bad start at work, at school, or at home was to shake it off and move on. Now I believe the better approach is to start again or start together.

Owls, meanwhile, display some darker tendencies.

Do the same for flawed design.

Last century, machines proved they could replace human backs. This century, new technologies are proving they can replace human left brains.

Boundary crossers reject either/or choices and seek multiple options and blended solutions. They lead hyphenated lives filled with hyphenated jobs and enlivened by hyphenated identities.

In several studies, Dweck found that giving children a performance goal (say, getting a high mark on a test) was effective for relatively straightforward problems but often inhibited children's ability to apply the concepts to new situations.

Most inventions and breakthroughs come from reassembling existing ideas in new ways.

I'm convinced that Type I is the natural state—the default setting—for most human beings. By contrast, Type X behavior is something people learn through their experiences

Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

To reprise language from the previous chapter, the solution isn't algorithmic (following a set path) but heuristic (breaking from the path to discover a novel strategy).

To survive in this age, individuals and organizations must examine what they're doing to earn a living and ask themselves three questions: 1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper? 2. Can a computer do it faster? 3. Is what I'm offering in demand in an age of abundance?

But at other moments, it exploded. Species experienced long periods of stasis that were interrupted by sudden bursts of change. Afterward, the newly transformed species remained stable for another long stretch—until another eruption abruptly altered its course once again.

Because of their difficulty analyzing the particulars, they became adept at recognizing the patterns.

If Only counterfactuals degrade our feelings now, but—and this is key—they can improve our lives later. Regret is the quintessential upward counterfactual—the ultimate If Only. The source of its power, scientists are discovering, is that it muddles the conventional pain-pleasure calculus.[10] Its very purpose is to make us feel worse—because by making us feel worse today, regret helps us do better tomorrow.

Which leads us inexorably to canned soup.