Barking Up the Wrong Tree Quotes

“Nobel Prize–winner Herbert Simon, who created the idea of maximizing and satisficing, said that in the end, when you calculate all factors of stress, results, and effort, satisficing is actually the method that maximizes.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Nobody wants to be the next karōshi statistic.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Sonja Lyubomirsky published in the Journal of Career Assessment, success does not lead to happiness as often as happiness leads to success”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Teammate Jimmy Piersall once asked him why he was so mad all the time. Williams responded, “You know why? Because I’ve got to be good every day. You don’t have to be.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Michael McMains found that police made three big mistakes when it came to dealing with crisis incidents: they made everything black and white, they wanted to solve things immediately, and they didn’t focus on emotions. You and I make the same mistakes. Granted, we’re not dealing with emotionally disturbed people. Actually, hold on. Often we are dealing with emotionally disturbed people; we just call them coworkers and family members. They’re not terrorists making demands (although sometimes it seems like that too). Usually they’re just upset. They just want to be heard.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Law enforcement is dealing with life and death. Regular people like you and me are not, but we act like it. Our “dinosaur brain” assumes every dispute is an existential threat: “This argument over who should take out the trash is a matter of life and death.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“But Bernstein says this is a trap. Explaining is almost always veiled dominance. You’re not trying to educate; you’re still trying to win. The subtext is, “Here’s why I am right and you are wrong.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Many people, when they hear about hostage negotiation, shake their heads and say, “Why don’t they just shoot the guy?” But those people don’t know the stats. When police launch an assault during a hostage situation, it’s the police who suffer the bulk of the casualties. Fighting may end things quickly, but the research shows it doesn’t end things well. You and I do the same thing in our personal relationships. Things go sideways and often our first response is to fight. Not physical violence, but yelling and arguing vs. discussing and negotiating. Why is this? Philosopher Daniel Dennett says it’s because a “war metaphor” is wired into our brains when it comes to disagreement. When there’s a war, someone is conquered. It’s not a discussion of facts and logic; it’s a fight to the death. No matter who is really right, if you win, I lose. In almost every conversation, status is on the line. Nobody wants to look stupid. So, as Dennett explains, we set up a situation where learning is equivalent to losing.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“conversation defibrillator”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Should I stay or should I go?”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Spending 5 percent of your time trying new things, knowing you will quit most of them, can lead to great opportunities. (And not all of them need to involve concussions.)”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Economist Henry Siu said, “People who switch jobs more frequently early in their careers tend to have higher wages and incomes in their prime-working years. Job-hopping is actually correlated with higher incomes, because people have found better matches—their true calling.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Angela Duckworth, agrees with this. In her paper “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals,” she says, “A strong desire for novelty and a low threshold for frustration may be adaptive earlier in life: Moving on from dead-end pursuits is essential to the discovery of more promising paths.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Silicon Valley mantra: Fail fast and fail cheap.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Spencer explained the downside of grit: “I know plenty of people for whom grit is a liability because it allows them to stick with something that makes them or others miserable and towards no long-term good aim. The alternative of which is the thing that you would most like to do that would bring you the most joy and might bring other people the most joy or be the most productive.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“As W. C. Fields once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again . . . then give up. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Whiny neutered goats fly. Picture it in your mind. You’ve just learned what all good games have in common: WNGF. They’re Winnable. They have Novel challenges and Goals, and provide Feedback.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Jane McGonigal, a researcher and game designer, argues that by its very nature, efficiency entails removing game mechanics from the design of labor. In other words, we’re taking the fun out of it.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“By engaging in cognitive reappraisal, and telling ourselves a different story about what is happening, we can subvert the entire willpower paradigm. Some research has shown that willpower is like a muscle, and it gets tired with overuse. But it only gets depleted if there’s a struggle. Games change the struggle to something else.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005 he said, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“The old saying is “Quitters never win and winners never quit.” But is it true? We all know someone who wasted”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Shawn Achor’s research at Harvard shows that college grades aren’t any more predictive of subsequent life success than rolling dice. A study of over seven hundred American millionaires showed their average college GPA was 2.9.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“If you want to do well in school and you’re passionate about math, you need to stop working on it to make sure you get an A in history too. This generalist approach doesn’t lead to expertise. Yet eventually we almost all go on to careers in which one skill is highly rewarded and other skills aren’t that important. Ironically, Arnold found that intellectual students”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Research shows that what makes students likely to be impressive in the classroom is the same thing that makes them less likely to be home-run hitters outside the classroom.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Like Churchill’s paranoid defense of the British state, these qualities were a poison that under just the right circumstances could be a performance-enhancing drug. Mukunda calls these “intensifiers.” And they hold the secret to how your biggest weakness might just be your greatest strength.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Bakadesuyo.com.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Too often we label things “good” or “bad” when the right designation might merely be “different.” The Israeli military needed people who could analyze satellite images for threats. They needed soldiers who had amazing visual skills, wouldn’t get bored looking at the same place all day long, and could notice subtle changes. Not an easy task. But the IDF’s Visual Intelligence Division found the perfect recruits in the most unlikely of places. They began recruiting people with autism. While autistics may struggle with personal interaction, many excel at visual tasks, like puzzles. And they’ve proven themselves a great asset in their nation’s defense.”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Malcolm Gladwell popularized K. Anders Ericsson’s research showing that it takes approximately ten thousand hours of effort to become an expert at something. There is a natural reaction to so big a number: Why in the world would anyone do that? With the idea framed by the term “expertise,” we are quick to associate positive notions, like “dedication” and “passion,” but there’s little doubt that spending so much time and hard work on anything nonessential has an element of obsession to it. While the valedictorian treats school as a job, working hard to get A’s and follow the rules, the obsessed creative succeeds by bearing down on his or her passion projects with a religious zeal. In”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

“Did he have the best trainer? Nope. His friend Uroč Velepec described Robič as “Completely uncoachable.” In a piece for the New York Times, Dan Coyle revealed the edge Robič had over his competition that rendered him the greatest rider ever in the Race Across America: His insanity. That’s not an exaggerated way of saying he was extreme. It’s a literal way of saying when Robič rode, he utterly lost his mind. He became paranoid; had tearful, emotional breakdowns; and saw cryptic meaning in the cracks on the street beneath him. Robič would throw down his bike and walk toward the follow car of his team members, fists clenched and eyes ablaze. (Wisely, they locked the doors.) He leapt off his bike mid-race to engage in fistfights . . . with mailboxes. He hallucinated, one time seeing mujahedeen chasing him with guns. His then wife was so disturbed by Robič’s behavior she locked herself in the team’s trailer. Coyle”
― Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong