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It Is When We Act Freely, For The Sake Of The Action Itself Rather Than For Ulterior Motives, That We Learn To Become More Than What We Were. When We Choose A Goal And Invest Ourselves In It To The Limits Of Concentration, Whatever We Do Will Be Enjoyable. And Once We Have Tasted This Joy, We Will Redouble Our Efforts To Taste It Again. This Is The Way The Self Grows.

-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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It Is When We

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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It Is When We Act Freely, For The Sake Of The Action Itself Rather Than For Ulterior Motives, That We Learn To Become More Than What We Were. When We Choose A Goal And Invest Ourselves In It To The Limits Of Concentration, Whatever We Do Will Be Enjoyable. And Once We Have Tasted This Joy, We Will Redouble Our Efforts To Taste It Again. This Is The Way The Self Grows.

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To Be Creative, A Person Has To Internalize The Entire System That Makes Creativity Possible. Creative Individuals Are Remarkable For Their Ability To Adapt To Almost Any Situation And To Make Do With Whatever Is At Hand To Reach Their Goals.

Without The Capacity To Provide Its Own Information, The Mind Drifts Into Randomness.

An Ideal Organization Is One In Which Each Worker's Potentialities Find Room For Expression.

Participate As Fully As Possibly In The World Around You.

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Without Respect, The Subtle Alchemy That Binds An Organization Or That Serves As The Impetus For A Business Transaction Would Dissolve Into Mutual Suspicion And Hostility.

Write Down Each Day What Surprised You And How You Surprised Others. When Something Strikes A Spark Of Interest, Follow It.

Try To Be Inspired By Something Every Day. Try To Inspire At Least One Person Every Day.

Only Direct Control Of Experience, The Ability To Derive Moment-by-moment Enjoyment From Everything We Do, Can Overcome The Obstacles To Fulfillment.

The Ability To Take Misfortune And Make Something Good Come Of It Is A Rare Gift. Those Who Possess It Are ..said To Have Resilience Or Courage.

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The Best Moments In Our Lives Are Not The Passive, Receptive, Relaxing Times...the Best Moments Usually Occur When A Person's Body Or Mind Is Stretched To It's Limited In Voluntary Effort To Accomplish Something Difficult And Worthwhile.

To Be Overcome With The Ultimate Goal Often Interferes With Performance.

Unless A Person Knows How To Give Order To Her Thoughts, Attention Will Be Attracted To Whatever Is Most Problematic At The Moment.

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The More A Person Feels Skilled, The More Her Moods Will Improve; While The More Challenges That Are Present, The More Her Attention Will Become Focused And Concentrated.

Look At Problems From As Many Viewpoints As Possible. Figure Out The Implications Of The Problem. Implement The Solution.

Some Individuals Have Developed Such Strong Internal Standards That They No Longer Need The Opinion Of Others To Judge Whether They Have Performed A Task Well Or Not. The Ability To Give Objective Feedback To Oneself Is In Fact The Mark Of The Expert.

To Be Successful You Have To Enjoy Doing Your Best While At The Same Time Contributing To Something Beyond Yourself.

Doing Your Best

The Self Expands Through Acts Of Self Forgetfulness.

Self Forgetfulness

If An Enterprise Does Not Aspire To Be The Best Of Its Kind, It Will Attract Second-rate Employees, And It Will Be Soon Forgotten.

Most Enjoyable Activities Are Not Natural; They Demand An Effort That Initially One Is Reluctant To Make. But Once The Interaction Starts To Provide Feedback To The Person's Skills, It Usually Begins To Be Intrinsically Rewarding.

Optimal Experience Is That Rare Occasion When We Feel A Sense Of Exhilaration, A Deep Sense Of Enjoyment That Is Long Cherished And That Becomes A Landmark In Memory For What Life Should Be Like.

It Is By Being Fully Involved With Every Detail Of Our Lives, Whether Good Or Bad, That We Find Happiness, Not By Trying To Look For It Directly.

And, In Fact, You Can Find That The Lack Of Basic Resources, Material Resources, Contributes To Unhappiness, But The Increase In Material Resources Do Not Increase Happiness.

There Will Be No Good Business Unless The Majority Comes To Agree That We Should Demand More From Business Than Large Quarterly Returns.

To Know Oneself Is The First Step Toward Making Flow A Part Of One's Entire Life. But Just As There Is No Free Lunch In The Material Economy, Nothing Comes Free In The Psychic One. If One Is Not Willing To Invest Psychic Energy In The Internal Reality Of Consciousness, And Instead Squanders It In Chasing External Rewards, One Loses Mastery Of One's Life, And Ends Up Becoming A Puppet Of Circumstances.

You Yourself Are In An Ecstatic State To Such A Point That You Feel As Though You Almost Don't Exist. I've Experienced This Time And Again. My Hand Seems Devoid Of Myself, And I Have Nothing To Do With What Is Happening. I Just Sit There Watching In A State Of Awe And Wonderment. And It Just Flows Out By Itself.

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Ethical Principles

The Task Is To Learn How To Enjoy Everyday Life Without Diminishing Other People's Chances To Enjoy Theirs.

Other Things Equal, A Life Filled With Complex Flow Activities Is More Worth Living Than One Spent Consuming Passive Entertainment.

It Is Not The Hearing That Improves Life, But The Listening.

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Find A Way To Express What Moves You.

We Can Transform Reality To The Extent That We Influence What Happens In Consciousness And Thus Free Ourselves From The Threats And Blandishments Of The Outside World.

Entropy Is The Normal State Of Consciousness - A Condition That Is Neither Useful Nor Enjoyable.

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But Shortcuts Are Dangerous; We Cannot Delude Ourselves That Our Knowledge Is Further Along Than It Actually Is.

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People Without An Internalized Symbolic System Can All Too Easily Become Captives Of The Media.

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Shift Often From Openness To Closure.

Those Periods Of Struggling To Overcome Challenges Are What People Find To Be The Most Enjoyable Times.

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Like Being Alone

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Enjoyment Appears At The Boundary Between Boredom And Anxiety, When The Challenges Are Just Balanced With The Person's Capacity To Act.

People Generally Report Higher Levels Of Stress, Depression, And Tension After Watching Tv. It Seems That Tv's Main Virtue Is That It Occupies The Mind Undemandingly.

It Is Amazing How Little Effort Most People Make To Improve Control Of Their Attention. If Reading A Book Seems Too Difficult, Instead Of Sharpening Concentration We Tend To Set It Aside And Instead Turn On The Television, Which Not Only Requires Minimal Attention, But In Fact Tends To Diffuse What Little It Commands With Choppy Editing, Commercial Interruptions, And Generally Inane Content.

If We Agree That The Bottom Line Of Life Is Happiness, Not Success, Then It Makes Perfect Sense To Say That It Is The Journey That Counts, Not Reaching The Destination.

Attention Is Like Energy In That Without It No Work Can Be Done, And In Doing Work Is Dissipated. We Create Ourselves By How We Use This Energy. Memories, Thoughts And Feelings Are All Shaped By How Use It. And It Is An Energy Under Control, To Do With As We Please; Hence Attention Is Our Most Important Tool In The Task Of Improving The Quality Of Experience.

In Large Organizations The Dilution Of Information As It Passes Up And Down The Hierarchy, And Horizontally Across Departments, Can Undermine The Effort To Focus On Common Goals.

If We Know What That Set Point Is, We Can Predict Fairly Accurately When You Will Be In Flow, And It Will Be When Your Challenges Are Higher Than Average And Skills Are Higher Than Average.

Since The Purpose Of Business Is To Satisfy Existing Desires, Or Stimulate New Ones, If Everyone Were Genuinely Happy, There Would Be No Need For Business Any Longer.

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Knowing Oneself Is Not So Much A Question Of Discovering What Is Present In One's Self, But Rather The Creation Of Who One Wants To Be.

Each Of Us Is Born With Two Contradictory Sets Of Instructions: A Conservative Tendency, Made Up Of Instincts For Self-preservation, Self-aggrandizement, And Saving Energy, And An Expansive Tendency Made Up Of Instincts For Exploring, For Enjoying Novelty And Risk-the Curiosity That Leads To Creativity Belongs To This Set. But Whereas The First Tendency Requires Little Encouragement Or Support From Outside To Motivate Behaviour, The Second Can Wilt If Not Cultivated.

Our Jobs Determine To A Large Extent What Our Lives Are Like. Is What You Do For A Living Making You Ill? Does It Keep You From Becoming A More Fully Realized Person? Do You Feel Ashamed Of What You Have To Do At Work? All Too Often, The Answer To Such Questions Is Yes. Yet It Does Not Have To Be Like That. Work Can Be One Of The Most Joyful, Most Fulfilling Aspects Of Life. Whether It Will Be Or Not Depends On The Actions We Collectively Take.

A Thoroughly Socialized Person Is One Who Desires Only The Rewards That Others Around Him Have Agreed He Should Long For - Rewards Often Grafted Onto Genetically Programmed Desires.a Person Who Cannot Override Genetic Instructions When Necessary Is Always Vulnerable..the Solution Is To Gradually Become Free Of Societal Rewards And Learn How To Substitute For Them Rewards That Are Under One's Own Powers.

But It Is Impossible To Enjoy A Tennis Game, A Book, Or A Conversation Unless Attention Is Fully Concentrated On The Activity.

Whatever The Dictates Of Fashion, It Seems That Those Who Take The Trouble To Gain Mastery Over What Happens In Consciousness Do Lead A Happier Life.

People Enter Web Sites Hoping To Be Led Somewhere, Hoping For A Payoff.

Control Of Consciousness Determines The Quality Of Life.

Quality Of Life

However, A Good Life Consists Of More Than Simply The Totality Of Enjoyable Experiences. It Must Also Have A Meaningful Pattern, A Trajectory Of Growth That Results In The Development Of Increasing Emotional, Cognitive, And Social Complexity.

Happiness Is Not Something That Happens ... It Does Not Depend On Outside Events, But, Rather, On How We Interpret Them.

Creativity Is Any Act, Idea, Or Product That Changes An Existing Domain, Or That Transforms An Existing Domain Into A New One What Counts Is Whether The Novelty He Or She Produces Is Accepted For Inclusion In The Domain.

A Paycheck Is A Sufficient Impetus To Motivate Some Employees To Do The Minimum Amount To Get By, And For Others, The Challenge Of Getting Ahead In The Organization Provides A Satisfactory Focus For A While. But These Incentives Alone Are Rarely Strong Enough To Inspire Workers To Give Their Best To Their Work. For This A Vision Is Needed, An Overarching Goal That Gives Meaning To The Job, So That An Individual Can Forget Himself In The Task And Experience Flow Without Doubts Or Regrets. The Most Important Component Of Such A Vision Is An Ingredient We Call Soul.

It Is By Becoming Increasingly Complex That The Self Might Be Said To Grow.

When We Are Involved In [creativity], We Feel That We Are Living More Fully Than During The Rest Of Life.

In Knowledge-intensive Business Settings, Where Every Manager Has To Oversee Massive Amounts Of Information As Well As People, Facilitating The Use Of Psychic Energy Becomes A Primary Concern.

Control Over Consciousness Cannot Be Institutionaliz Ed. As Soon As It Becomes Part Of A Set Of Social Rules And Norms, It Ceases To Be Effective In The Way It Was Originally Intended To Be.

Through Learning We Grow, Becoming More Than We Were Before, And In That Sense Learning Is Unselfish, Because It Results In The Transformation Of What We Were Before, A Setting Aside Of The Old Self In Favor Of A More Complex One.

Wake Up In The Morning With A Specific Goal To Look Forward To.

But To Change All Existence Into A Flow Experience, It Is Not Sufficient To Learn Merely How To Control Moment-by-moment States Of Consciousness. It Is Also Necessary To Have An Overall Context Of Goals For The Events Of Everyday Life To Make Senseto Create Harmony In Whatever One Does Is The Last Task That The Flow Theory Presents To Whose Who Wish To Attain Optimal Experience; It Is A Task That Involves Transforming The Entirety Of Life Into A Single Flow Activity, With Unified Goals That Provide Constant Purpose.

To Gain Control Over The Quality Of Experience, One Needs To Learn How To Build Enjoyment Into What Happens Day In, Day Out.

The Happiest People Spend Much Time In A State Of Flow - The State In Which People Are So Involved In An Activity That Nothing Else Seems To Matter; The Experience Itself Is So Enjoyable That People Will Do It Even At Great Cost, For The Sheer Sake Of Doing It.

Creativity Is A Central Source Of Meaning In Our Lives...most Of The Things That Are Interesting, Important, And Human Are The Results Of Creativity...when We Are Involved In It, We Feel That We Are Living More Fully Than During The Rest Of Life.

When Each Of These Three Elements Of Vision-concern For Excellence, For People And For The Wider Environment-are Present, Business Is Transformed From A Tool For Making Profits Into A Creative, Humane Experiment For Improving Life.

If There Is One Word That Makes Creative People Different From Others, It Is The Word Complexity. Instead Of Being An Individual, They Are A Multitude. Like The Color White That Includes All Colors, They Tend To Bring Together The Entire Range Of Human Possibilities Within Themselves. Creativity Allows For Paradox, Light, Shadow, Inconsistency, Even Chaos -and Creative People Experience Both Extremes With Equal Intensity.

A Person Can Make Himself Happy, Or Miserable, Regardless Of What Is Actually Happening 'outside,' Just By Changing The Contents Of Consciousness.

Creative Individuals Are More Likely To Have Not Only The Strengths Of Their Own Gender But Those Of The Other One, Too.

Whether We Like It Or Not, Each Of Us Is Constrained By Limits On What We Can Do And Feel. To Ignore These Limits Leads To Denial And Eventually To Failure. To Achieve Excellence, We Must First Understand The Reality Of The Everyday, With All Its Demands

If I Had To Express In One Word What Makes Their [creative Individuals'] Personalities Different From Others, It's Complexity. They Show Tendencies Of Thought And Action That In Most People Are Segregated. They Contain Contradictory Extremes; Instead Of Being An "individual," Each Of Them Is A "multitude."

Flow Is Being Completely Involved In An Activity For Its Own Sake. The Ego Falls Away. Time Flies. Every Action, Movement, And Thought Follows Inevitably From The Previous One, Like Playing Jazz.

Happiness Does Not Simply Happen To Us. It's Something That We Make Happen.

It Is When We Act Freely, For The Sake Of The Action Itself Rather Than For Ulterior Motives, That We Learn To Become More Than What We Were.

The Most Important Step In Emancipating Oneself From Social Controls Is The Ability To Find Rewards In The Events Of Each Moment.

Today Many American Corporations Spend A Great Deal Of Money And Time Trying To Increase The Originality Of Their Employees, Hoping Thereby To Get A Competitive Edge In The Marketplace. But Such Programs Make No Difference Unless Management Also Learns To Recognize The Valuable Ideas Among The Many Novel Ones, And Then Finds Ways Of Implementing Them.

Pain And Pleasure Occur In Consciousness And Exist Only There

If You're Alone With Nothing To Do, The Quality Of Your Experience Really Plummets.

I Have Devoted 30 Years Of Research To How Creative People Live And Work, To Make More Understandable The Mysterious Process By Which They Come Up With New Ideas And New Things. [...] If I Had To Express In One Word What Makes Their Personalities Different From Others, It's Complexity. They Show Tendencies Of Thought And Action That In Most People Are Segregated. They Contain Contradictory Extremes; Instead Of Being An "individual", Each Of Them Is A "multitude".

We Shape Our Life By Deciding To Pay Attention To It. It Is The Direction Of Our Attention And Its Intensity That Will Determines What We Accomplish And How Well.

If We Are So Rich, Why Aren't We Happy?

A Joyful Life Is An Individual Creation That Cannot Be Copied From A Recipe.

What I "discovered" Was That Happiness Is Not Something That Happens. It Is Not The Result Of Good Fortune Or Random Chance. It Is Not Something That Money Can Buy Or Power Command. It Does Not Depend On Outside Events, But, Rather, On How We Interpret Them. Happiness, In Fact, Is A Condition That Must Be Prepared For, Cultivated, And Defended Privately By Each Person. People Who Learn To Control Inner Experience Will Be Able To Determine The Quality Of Their Lives, Which Is As Close As Any Of Us Can Come To Being Happy.

Competition Is An Easy Way To Get Into Flow.

A Web Site That Promotes Flow Is Like A Gourmet Meal. You Start Off With The Appetizers, Move On To The Salads And Entrees, And Build Toward Dessert. Unfortunately, Most Sites Are Built Like A Cafeteria. You Pick Whatever You Want. That Sounds Good At First, But Soon It Doesn't Matter What You Choose To Do. Everything Is Bland And The Same.

A Typical Day Is Full Of Anxiety And Boredom. Flow Experiences Provide The Flashes Of Intense Living Against This Dull Background.

It Is When We Act Freely, For The Sake Of The Action Itself Rather Than For Ulterior Motives, That We Learn To Become More Than What We Were. When We Choose A Goal And Invest Ourselves In It To The Limits Of Concentration, Whatever We Do Will Be Enjoyable. And Once We Have Tasted This Joy, We Will Redouble Our Efforts To Taste It Again. This Is The Way The Self Grows.

When A Religion Or Ideology Becomes Dominant, The Lack Of Controls Will Result In Widening Spirals Of License Leading To Degradation And Corruption.

If The Firms That Employ An Increasing Majority Of The Population Are Driven Solely To Satisfy The Owner's Greed At The Expense Of Working Conditions, Of The Stability Of The Community, And Of The Health Of The Environment, Chances Are That The Quality Of Our Lives Will Be Worse Than It Is Now.

Act As If The Future Of The Universe Depends On What You Do, While Laughing At Yourself For Thinking That Your Actions Make Any Difference.

Jane Fonda, Who Divided Her Life Into Three Acts, Decided After Her Sixtieth Birthday That She Was Now Facing The Final Act, And Came To The Following Conclusion: "i Thought To Myself, Well If That's The Case And If What I'm Scared Of Isn't Death, But Getting To The End With Regrets, Then I've Got To Figure Out What Would Be The Things That I Would Regret When I Got To The Last Act If I Hadn't Done Them Or Achieved Them By Then. And They Were: Having An Intimate Relationship And Having Made A Difference."

Intimate Relationships

Find Out What You Like And What You Hate About Life. Start Doing More Of What You Love, Less Of What You Hate.

People Who Learn To Control Inner Experience Will Be Able To Determine The Quality Of Their Lives, Which Is As Close As Any Of Us Can Come To Being Happy.

...in The Words Of Max Depree: "management Has A Lot To Do With Answers. But Leadership Is A Function Of Questions. And The First Question For A Leader Always Is: 'who Do We Intend To Be?' Not 'what Are We Going To Do?' But 'who Do We Intend To Be?'"

For A Person To Become Deeply Involved In Any Activity It Is Essential That He Knows Precisely What Tasks He Must Accomplish, Moment By Moment.

Competition Is Enjoyable Only When It Is A Means To Perfect One’s Skills; When It Becomes An End In Itself, It Ceases To Be Fun.

Studying Creativity Is Not An Elite Distraction, But Provides One Of The Most Exciting Models For Living.

A Self That Is Only Differentiated - Not Integrated - May Attain Great Individual Accomplishments, But Risks Being Mired In Self-centered Egotism. By The Same Token, A Person Who Self Is Based Exclusively On Integration Will Be Well Connected And Secure, But Lack Autonomous Individuality. Only When A Person Invests Equal Amounts Of Psychic Energy In These Two Processes And Avoids Both Selfishness And Conformity Is The Self Likely To Reflect Complexity.

There Are Managers So Preoccupied With Their E-mail Messages That They Never Look Up From Their Screens To See What's Happening In The Nondigital World

Goals Transform A Random Walk Into A Chase.

To Live Means To Experience-through Doing, Feeling, Thinking. Experience Takes Place In Time, So Time Is The Ultimate Scarce Resource We Have. Over The Years, The Content Of Experience Will Determine The Quality Of Life. Therefore One Of The Most Essential Decisions Any Of Us Can Make Is About How One's Time Is Allocated Or Invested.

Repression Is Not The Way To Virtue. When People Restrain Themselves Out Of Fear, Their Lives Are By Necessity Diminished. Only Through Freely Chosen Discipline Can Life Be Enjoyed And Still Kept Within The Bounds Of Reason.

Many Business Leaders Today View Their Jobs As Entailing Responsibility For The Welfare Of The Wider Community. These Individuals Do Not Define Themselves As Profit-making Machines Whose Only Reason For Existing Is To Satisfy Escalating Expectation For Immediate Gain.

It Is Not The Skills We Actually Have That Determine How We Feel But The Ones We Think We Have.

If You Do Anything Well, It Becomes Enjoyable. To Keep Enjoying Something, You Need To Increase Its Complexity.

Why Is It That, Despite Having Achieved Previously Undreamed-of Miracles Of Progress, We Seem More Helpless In Facing Life Than Our Less Privileged Ancestors Were? The Answer Seems Clear: While Humankind Collectively Has Increased Its Material Powers A Thousandfold, It Has Not Advanced Very Far In Terms Of Improving The Content Of Experience.

I Have A Naive Trust In The Universe - That At Some Level It All Makes Sense, And We Can Get Glimpses Of That Sense If We Try.

How We Feel About Ourselves, The Joy We Get From Living, Ultimately Depends Directly On How The Mind Filters And Interprets Everyday Experiences. Whether We Are Happy Depends On Inner Harmony, Not On The Controls We Are Able To Exert Over The Great Forces Of The Universe.

And It Has Become A Kind Of A Truism In The Study Of Creativity That You Can't Be Creating Anything With Less Than 10 Years Of Technical Knowledge Immersion In A Particular Field.

Whatever The Composition Of A Firm, If It Is To Do Good Business It Should Be A Place Where Everyone Is Encouraged To Progress Toward Complexity- Or At The Very Least A Place That Does Not Make It More Difficult To Achieve Personal Growth.

Take Charge Of Your Schedule. Make Time For Reflection And Relaxation.

For Better Or Worse, Our Future Is Now Closely Tied To Human Creativity.

It Is As If Evolution Has Built A Safety Device In Our Nervous System That Allows Us To Experience Full Happiness Only When We Are Living At 100%-when We Are Fully Using The Physical And Mental Equipment We Have Been Given.

Discipline Is Not Always Internalized And Actually Can Breed Resentment Among Children.

Enjoyment, On The Other Hand, Is Not Always Pleasant, And It Can Be Very Stressful At Times. A Mountain Climber, For Example, May Be Close To Freezing, Utterly Exhausted, And In Danger Of Falling Into A Bottomless Crevasse, Yet He Wouldn't Want To Be Anywhere Else. Sipping A Piña Colada Under A Palm Tree At The Edge Of The Turquoise Ocean Is Idyllic, But It Just Doesn't Compare To The Exhilaration He Feels On The Windswept Ridge.

I Think That Evolution Has Had A Hand In Selecting People Who Had A Sense Of Doing Something Beyond Themselves.

Getting Control Of Life Is Never Easy, And Sometimes It Can Be Definitely Painful.

We Cannot Deny The Facts Of Nature, But We Should Certainly Try To Improve On Them.

Develop What You Lack.

As Long As We Respond Predictably To What Feels Good And What Feels Bad, It Is Easy For Others To Exploit Our Preferences For Their Own Ends.

Contrary To What Most Of Us Believe, Happiness Does Not Simply Happen To Us. It's Something That We Make Happen, And It Results From Doing Our Best. Feeling Fulfilled When We Live Up To Our Potentialities Is What Motivates Differentiation And Leads To Evolution.

Optimal Experience Is Thus Something That We Make Happen.

One Cannot Lead A Life That Is Truly Excellent Without Feeling That One Belongs To Something Greater And More Permanent Than Oneself.

A Business Is Successful To The Extent That It Provides A Product Or Service That Contributes To Happiness In All Of Its Forms.

Those Who Seek Consolation In Existing Churches Often Pay For Their Peace Of Mind With A Tacit Agreement To Ignore A Great Deal Of What Is Known About The Way The World Works.

Produce As Many Ideas As Possible. Try To Produce Unlikely Ideas.

Repeatedly We Question The Necessity Of Our Actions And Evaluate Critically The Reasons For Carrying Them Out. But In Flow There Is No Need To Reflect, Because The Action Carries Us Forward As If By Magic.

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