It's Not About the Shark Quotes

“Thomas Ward found, we are twice as creative when the first impulse doesn’t work.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“Looking at a problem the same way over and over again is entirely unproductive. We will fail unless we give our minds a way to look at the situation from a new perspective.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“The power of tolerating the opposite is seeing things no one else can see, doing things that have never been done, believing when everyone else has given up.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“He even collected responses from a dozen Nobel laureates—who turned out to give the greatest number of opposites in the shortest time of any group he ever tested.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“Pushing past a first draft lets you put the problem down. Pushing past the first draft is where you’ll find the answer.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“unquestioned confidence comes from doing something, no matter whether it was the right thing to do. In other words, when we’re wrong, we’re going”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“It is harder to do what you’re being told than to do what you’ve been taught.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“You don’t need an echo when you ask a question.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“Ultimately it really didn’t matter if subjects saw the group as right or wrong, because the group was more powerful than reality.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“When it really matters, a single mind creates action, while a meeting of the minds creates hesitation and doubt.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“Today, every American state spends more on its jails than on its universities. When you have a clear enemy, you fight it with everything you have.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“if I see and hear only what ‘someone like me’ should see and hear, no original or out-of-the-ordinary thought will ever permeate the bubble. I’ll never be surprised or shocked. I’ll never be forced to rethink or reevaluate anything. I’ll just lumber along, blissfully ignorant of what I really need to see and hear—which are things that don’t merely confirm my preconceptions about the world.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“seeing something different as a problem instead of seeing it as an asset.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“you can’t chase importance,”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“Good breaks down over time. We get used to good things, and it raises our expectations.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“Audience research, he says now, is always going to spit out its first taste”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer

“These were all very talented engineers. All knowledgeable, capable, skilled, and driven. Yet their likelihood of succeeding varied tremendously based on what they were trying to do. The group that had never seen a bad example let their natural talents carry them to a good design. They wasted not a moment on the problem and spent all their time on the solution.”
― David Niven, It's Not About the Shark: The Simple Path from Problem to Answer