Eric Barker Quotes

We all spend a lot of time complaining about incompetence, but as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in a talk he gave at High Point University, overconfidence is the far bigger problem.

power have very negative effects on a person’s character. Power reduces empathy, makes us hypocritical, and causes us to dehumanize others.

Research shows that “only 6 percent of people work in the profession they aspired to in childhood” and a third of people end up in a career that has nothing to do with their college major.

Barry Schwartz told me: “Good enough is almost always good enough.

Henry David Thoreau said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

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

David Dobbs said in a piece for The Atlantic, “the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail — but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.” This

And as a paper in American Psychologist showed, “Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.

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.

Influence guru Professor Robert Cialdini says that not only is reciprocity one of the key elements of being influential and winning favor with others but it’s also essential that you go first.

Walker Smith of Yankelovich Partners told The Wall Street Journal, “Right now, there’s no aspiration to be middle class. Everyone wants to be at the top.” We probably have far more now than we ever had in the past, but we’re probably not much happier. And instinctively we think the problem can still be fixed by more. More money. More food. More things. Just more. We’re not even sure what we need more of, but whatever we have now sure as hell isn’t doing it, so turn it up to eleven, Bertha.

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.

people change only when they feel they don’t have to. There’s a healthy (and effective) way to help your partner move in the direction of positive change. But it starts with who they want to be, not who you want them to be.

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.

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.