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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Richard Reed
If chosen well, a few words can capture and disseminate the main insights gained from someone’s hard years of experience, thereby allowing us all to benefit from them. That is certainly the aim of each of the encounters in the book.
Given all that you have experienced, given all that you now know and given all that you have learnt, if you could pass on only one piece of advice, what would it be?
‘I’ve come to believe that one of the most important things is to see people. The person who opens the door for you, the person who pours your coffee. Acknowledge them. Show them respect. The traditional greeting of the Zulu people of South Africa is “Sawubona”. It means “I see you”. I try and do that.’
‘ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IS TO SEE PEOPLE. THE PERSON WHO OPENS THE DOOR FOR YOU, THE PERSON WHO POURS YOUR COFFEE. ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. SHOW THEM RESPECT.’
‘With many people, there is a sense the world is falling apart and it creates a feeling of just giving up. And that inertia is the real danger to society. People have to realise we can create change by changing ourselves.’
‘liquid knowledge – the knowledge that is universal and belongs to everyone’
‘create distractions to stop distraction, and rediscover the present so they can then rediscover themselves’.
commit deeply to whatever it is you feel that you must do.
‘Today 100 per cent is not enough. Give 100 per cent, and then go over this border into what is more than you can do. You have to take the unknown journey to where nobody has ever been, because that is how civilisation moves forwards. 100 per cent is not enough. 150 per cent is just good enough.’
‘Yes, the pain can be terrible,’ she replies, ‘but if you say to yourself “So what? So Pain, what can you do?” and if you accept pain and are no longer afraid of it, you will cross the gate into the non-pain state.’
‘TODAY 100 PER CENT IS NOT ENOUGH. GIVE 100 PER CENT, AND THEN GO OVER THIS BORDER INTO WHAT IS MORE THAN YOU CAN DO. YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE UNKNOWN JOURNEY TO WHERE NOBODY HAS EVER BEEN, BECAUSE THAT IS HOW CIVILISATION MOVES FORWARDS. 100 PER CENT IS NOT ENOUGH. 150 PER CENT IS JUST GOOD ENOUGH.
‘In that simple statement she summed up with tremendous courage something we should never
forget: we are all members of the same human family. We all have fears, and hopes and aspirations. We all have our vulnerabilities, so we should be very careful before we attribute negative stereotypes to other people.’
no regrets, no self-pity and no sentimentality.
‘I did my best to structure each day. I would allocate a period of time to doing my exercises, then I would write for an hour or two in my head, then do mental arithmetic.
And I spent a lot of time dreaming up poetry too. And then it would be time for some more exercises. And so on.’
‘You know, the whole experience wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d just let me have some books.’
‘That is not to say such suffering is not difficult and damn hard, but it doesn’t need be totally destructive. It’s the way you approach it, and the way you approach life after.’
‘It’s the same lesson I learnt in that cell. What you have to do is live for the day, you have to say, now is life, this very moment. It’s not tomorrow, it’s not yesterday, it’s now, so you have to live it as fully as you can. Invest in every day.’
‘The secret, darling, is to love everyone you meet. From the moment you meet them. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Start from a position that they are lovely and that you will love them. Most people will respond to that and be lovely and love you back and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you can then achieve the most wonderful things.’
‘But get rid of any of the bastards that let you down.’
warm heart, iron will.
THE SECRET, DARLING, IS TO LOVE EVERYONE YOU MEET. FROM THE MOMENT YOU MEET THEM. GIVE EVERYONE THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.’ – Joanna Lumley
One piece of advice I want to give is avoid all life-coach lessons; they are snake oil, without exception, and the art of stating the so-fucking-obvious it makes your nose bleed.’
‘their obsession with goal-setting. Because if I meet my goals, what then? Is that it, is my life over? I met my goal, do I just set another one? What’s the meaning of the first goal if the second one has to be set? Or if I don’t meet it, am I a failure?’
Work is more fun than fun.
‘If you can make that true of your work, you will have a wonderful life. I know how lucky I am to have found that, and how unlucky so many are to have not found that. People talk about work–life balance. But the idea of balancing one against the other makes no sense. My work isn’t against my life – work is my life.’
Everyone I know who is successful works, and works hard. Really hard. Maybe that should be my advice: work your bloody bollocks off.’
‘It is never right to look at someone successful and think “That person’s got money, that person’s got looks, that person’s good at cricket … so it’s easier for them.” Chances are, 90 per cent of the time you’re wrong. But even if it is somehow true, thinking that is a very self-destructive thing. It leads only to resentment, which is corrosive and destroys everything but itself.’
It is the secret of art, and it is the secret of life: the more time you spend imagining what it’s like to be someone else, the more you develop empathy for others, the easier it is to know yourself and to be yourself.’
‘My interest in people, in humanity, in the way people live, whether they create a life of meaning or not, it goes back to my two parents, who are Holocaust survivors. They both spent four years plus in concentration camps and came out with nothing. All they had was themselves, their sense of decency and their relationship. That is what endured. And my dad said that was all that mattered.’
‘The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships. Not on your achievements, not on how smart you are, not on how rich you are, but on the quality of your relationships, which are basically a reflection of your
sense of decency, your ability to think of others, your generosity. Ultimately at the end of your life, if people commend you, they will say what a wonderful human being you were, and when they talk about the human being that you were, it won’t be the fact that you had a big bank account, it really won’t. It will be about how you treated the people around you and how you made them feel.’
