Publisher's Synopsis
Lady walks into a bar. Dimly lit, low-hanging smoke clouds, stale air. Says, "Can I get a drink?" Barista says "Sure." Hint of a smile on his small face. "On the house," he says. // What's captured him? Why do we work for some people and want only a pay check, where from others we want recognition and appreciation and encouragement? Why do we accept or offer advice to or from some people where for others we won't give or take the time of day? // Charisma. // Acknowledgment and accolade are incredibly fundamental drives behind motivation. These are deep and visceral and intellectual pulls.... // We want our names etched on trophies and plaques and into parapets and walls; we want letters of recommendation, certification and commendation; we will live for medallions and die for medals and our gift for life itself is a large slab of hot stone etched into with nice Roman letters that tell tomorrow that once there was this girl here and she mattered, she counted. We were very lucky to have her. // Ability is a flea in a jar. // Put a glass slide above it long enough and it forgets how high it can jump. Light a fire beneath it and, oh, how it soars. // You limit yourself tremendously by not creating your own demanding environment. You complain about others' rules and regulations and pushing you too hard for too little pay. // I think they get at you so much because they remind you how little drive you have on your own. // You're telling me you have an income source? // Oh I know you work damn hard, don't hate me for asking. You've lived 21, 32 years-plus most of you, and 11,680 days later, the result of 280,320 hours of your existence is that you have found a single thing that you're good enough at to demand an income for? // You're better than that. Much better. // When last did you test your own limit, your own breaking point if it exists? // How many days exactly can you go without sleep? How many miles can you run before you collapse in pain? How many words can you put on a page per minute? // Or do you not know these things? // Are you a professional athlete, writer, broker or tradesman who doesn't know his baseline output so he can improve it constantly. // Better data, better organization, better focus. Better, better, better. Faster, stronger, further. Less time, more result. //// Does it ever strike you that the world's best golfer is black, our best rapper is white and the best speeches of all time were written by non-professional writers? Gettysburg Address; Lincoln, 1863. Three paragraphs, 272 words. "The Speech;" General Patton, 1944. // That we have 71 billionaires...under the age of 40. Seventy-one. Or that once there was a woman who subsisted on state benefits alone but who today is the first billionaire-by-book-writing. Do these things ever strike you? // These people, do they get a different level of pressure than the rest of us that turned them out as diamonds? Was there some unbearable burden they were sentenced to tolerate? Yes, they do. Yes, there was. And it came from within. // Good helps us determine and isolate bad, riches show us what poverty is, pain shows us why we prefer pleasure, leaders show us who follows. Everything is relative to everything else. // In jure omnis definitio periculosa est. In law every definition is dangerous. Special words derogate from general ones. / 1. Elect the Enemy. / 2. Announce the Impossible./ 5. Paint Us a Better Picture. / 7. Keep a Cadence. / 9. Bear a Flag (It's called a 'Standard') / 10. Build a Library... // BONUS TIPS: 11. Attack is always attempted redefinition. // 13. Definition is to story as chorus is to song.
