Eric Barker Quotes

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.

Research has shown flattery is so powerful that it works even when the boss knows it’s insincere.

Fifty-eight members of the Forbes 400 either avoided college or ditched it partway through. These fifty-eight — almost 15 percent of the total — have an average net worth of $4.8 billion. This is 167 percent greater than the average net worth of the four hundred, which is $1.8 billion. It’s more than twice the average net worth of those four hundred members who attended Ivy League colleges.

Following the rules doesn’t create success; it just eliminates extremes

Kristin Neff explains, “Who is the only person in your life who is available 24/7 to provide you with care and kindness? You.

You need a personal definition of success. Looking around you to see if you’re succeeding is no longer a realistic option. Trying to be a relative success compared to others is dangerous. This means your level of effort and investment is determined by theirs, which keeps you running full speed all the time to keep up.

Feel underpaid? That increases risk for a heart attack

Silicon Valley mantra: Fail fast and fail cheap.

School has clear rules. Life often doesn’t.

We’ll see that the fundamental core of relationships is the stories our brains weave to create identity, agency, and community — and how those stories not only bind us together but can tear us apart if we’re not careful.

We spend too much time trying to be “good” when good is often merely average. To be great we must be different. And that doesn’t come from trying to follow society’s vision of what is best, because society doesn’t always know what it needs. More often being the best means just being the best version of you. As John Stuart Mill remarked, “That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of our time.” In the right environment, bad can be good and odd can be beautiful.

managing what your boss thinks of you is far more important than actual hard work. A study shows that those who made a good impression got better performance reviews than those who worked harder but didn’t manage impressions as well.

Sonja Lyubomirsky published in the Journal of Career Assessment, success does not lead to happiness as often as happiness leads to success

Most of the subjects in the study were classified as “careerists”: they saw their job as getting good grades, not really as learning.

Success is something you will confront constantly in business. You will always be interpreting it against something, and that something should be your own goals and purpose.