Quotes About Perspective

Mother Teresa once said, "If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." In

One important implication of the gap theory is that we need to open gaps before we close them. Our tendency is to tell people the facts. First, though, they must realize that they need these facts. The

if appropriate, add an element of surprise.

avoid useless accuracy, and to dodge the Curse of Knowledge, is to use analogies.

What's least commonsensical is that pits can sometimes be flipped into peaks.

A million seconds is 12 days. A billion is 1,000 times greater than 1,000,000. A billion seconds is 32 years.

Stories are like flight simulators for the brain.

When a CEO discusses "unlocking shareholder value," there is a tune playing in her head that the employees can't hear.

Novelty even changes our perception of time.

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

Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it.

Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Ronald Reagan famously posed

We can attain distance by looking at our situation from an observer's perspective.     ââ'¬Â¢  Andy Grove asked, "What would our successors do?"     ââ'¬Â¢  Adding distance highlights what is most important; it allows us to see the forest, not the trees.     7.

there's a good reason why change can be difficult: The world doesn't always want what you want.

We might think we understand it because it's right there, in black and white, but it has so many zeros that our brains fog up. It's just "lots." When we see how much larger it is than a million, it comes as a surprise.

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 first surprise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.

Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our

the common perception that time seems to accelerate as we get older. Our lives become more routine and less novel. We're seeing more and more brown shoes and fewer alarm clocks. Now

Imagine a gallon jug filled with water with three ice cubes next to it. All of the water in the jug is salt water. The ice cubes are the only fresh water, and humans can only drink the drops that are melting off of each.

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. He called this tendency "what you see is all there is.

Know what your listeners care about, so you can tailor your communication to them.

The value of the new A&W burger depended on consumers comparing two fractions: 1/3 and 1/4. But fractions are difficult for everyone, because they're parts of things as opposed to whole objects. We like to count things, and fractions don't equal "things." So, we jump to the closest available whole numbers. 4 is bigger than 3, so we mistakenly infer that a 1/4-pounder is a bigger burger than a 1/3-pounder.

To change someone's behavior, you've got to change that person's situation.