Cat

“We fail to build slack because we focus on what must be done now and do not think enough about all the things that can arise in the future. [...] What should you do? Should you leave spaces open in your schedule...just in case something unexpected comes up...? In effect, yes. That's what you do when you allocate forty minutes to drive somewhere a half hour away...When you face scarcity, slack is a necessity.”
― Eldar Shafir, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much

“When you listen to people, they feel valued. A 2003 study from Lund University in Sweden finds that “mundane, almost trivial” things like listening and chatting with employees are important aspects of successful leadership, because “people feel more respected, visible and less anonymous, and included in teamwork.”10 And a 2016 paper finds that this form of “respectful inquiry,” where the leader asks open questions and listens attentively to the response, is effective because it heightens the “follower’s” feelings of competence (feeling challenged and experiencing mastery), relatedness (feeling of belonging), and autonomy (feeling in control and having options). Those three factors are sort of the holy trinity of the self-determination theory of human motivation, originally developed by Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan.11”
― Eric Schmidt, Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell

“The challenges of sticking to a plan, the inability to resist a new leather jacket or a new project, the forgetfulness (the car registration, making a phone call, paying a bill) and the cognitive slips (the misestimated bank account balance, the mishandled invitation) all happen because of a shortage of bandwidth. There is one particularly important consequence: it further perpetuates scarcity. It was not a coincidence that Sendhil and Shawn fell into a trap and stayed there. Scarcity creates its own trap.”
― Sendhil Mullainathan, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much

“Learn everything. Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.” Hansu never told him to study, but rather to learn, and it occurred to Noa that there was a marked difference. Learning was like playing, not labor.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko