how do you measure success?

“How many people can walk into our homes and just open up the fridge and help themselves? Not many. People need ‘refrigerator rights relationships,’ the kind that are comfortable, informal, and intimate enough to let us walk into one another’s kitchens and rummage through the refrigerator without asking. It is close relationships like these that keep us well-adjusted, happy, and successful.”

-Keith Ferrazzi

Are you 'comfortable being uncomfortable'?

"‘Lou Pinella, the Tampa Bay Devil Ray’s manager, says he wants a team of guys that are ‘comfortable being uncomfortable.’ I like that line. I’ve found almost everything really valuable that I wanted in my life was sitting right outside of my comfort zone."

Tom Hanson, Ph.D., and Birgit Zacher Hanson, M.S.
Who Will Do What By When?

Pope Quote...

“Every country, rich or poor, has a cultural tradition handed down from past generations. This tradition includes institutions required by life in the world, and higher manifestations – artistic, intellectual and religious – of the life of the spirit. When the latter embody truly human values, it would be a great mistake to sacrifice them for the sake of the former. Any group of people who would consent to let this happen, would be giving up the better portion of their heritage; in order to live, they would be giving up their reason for living. Christ's question is directed to nations also: ‘What does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul?’”

-Pope Paul VI
Populorum Progressio (1968)

Quoted in A Civilization of Love by Carl Anderson

Let it be...

Sabbath
by Wayne Muller

When's the last time you got really mad?

“I was in a meeting where a discussion was going on which finally became rather bitter. Tempers were becoming frayed and some of the participants were decidedly on edge. Sharp remarks were passed. Suddenly one man arose, deliberately took off his coat, opened his collar, and lay down upon a couch. All were astonished, and someone asked if he felt ill.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I feel fine, but I am beginning to get mad, and I have learned that it is difficult to get mad lying down.’

We all laughed, and the tension was broken. Then our whimsical friend went on to explain that he had ‘tried a little trick’ with himself. He had a quick temper, and when he felt himself getting mad he found that he was clenching his fist and raising his voice, so he deliberately extended his fingers, not allowing them to form into a fist. In proportion to the rising of his tension or anger, he depressed his voice and talked in exaggerated low tones. ‘You cannot carry on an argument in a whisper,’ he said with a grin.

This principle can be effective in controlling emotional excitements, fretting and tension, as many have discovered by experimentation. A beginning step, therefore, in achieving calmness is to discipline your physical reactions. You will be surprised at how quickly this can reduce the heat of your emotions, and when emotional heat is driven off, fuming and fretting subside. You will be amazed at the energy and power you will save. You will be much less tired.”

- Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Positive Thinking

The Lost Art of Thank-You Notes

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other. And despite my love of efficiency, I think that thank-you notes are best done the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper.

There was a young lady who applied to get into the ETC and we were about to turn her down. She had big dreams; she wanted to be a Disney Imagineer. Her grades, her exams and her portfolio were good, but not quite good enough, given how selective the ETC could afford to be. Before we put her into the ‘no’ pile, I decided to page through her file one more time. As I did, I noticed a handwritten thank-you note had been slipped between the other pages.

The note hadn’t been sent to me, my co-director Don Marinelli, or any other faculty member. Instead, she had mailed it to a non-faculty support staffer who had helped her with arrangements when she came to visit. This staff member held no sway over her application, so this was not a suck-up note. It was just a few words of thanks to somebody who, unbeknownst to her, happened to toss her note to him into her application folder. Weeks later, I came upon it.

Having unexpectedly caught her thanking someone just because it was the nice thing to do, I paused to reflect on this. She had written her note by hand. I liked that. ‘This tells me more than anything else in her file,’ I said to Don. I read through her materials again. I thought about her. Impressed by her note, I decided she was worth taking a chance on, and Don agreed.

She came to the ETC, got her master’s degree, and is now a Disney Imagineer.”

-Randy Pausch
The Last Lecture