Traits like verbal fluency, adaptability, impulsivity, and humility are stable from childhood through adulthood. - Eric Barker

He’d watch Saturday Night Live, record the episodes on a video cassette recorder, transcribe the tapes by hand, and study the jokes. He scoured TV Guide every week to see which comedians were going to be on the talk shows. He wrote a thirty-page paper on the Marx brothers when he was in the fifth grade.

Researcher John Gottman realized that just hearing how the couple told the tale of their relationship together predicted with 94 percent accuracy whether or not they’d get divorced.

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.)