Shane Snow Quotes

We're multiplying our capabilities as a civilization and yet we still accept the notion that important societal progress, like combating inequality and crime - or even innovating in government and medicine - must take generations.

PRETEND YOU ARE DRIVING a car in the middle of a thunderstorm and you happen upon three people on the side of the road. One of them is a frail old woman, who looks on the verge of collapse. Another is a friend who once saved your life. The other is the romantic interest of your dreams, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet him or her. You have only one other seat in the car. Who do you pick up? There's a good reason to choose any of the three. The old woman needs help. The friend deserves your payback. And clearly, a happy future with the man or woman of your dreams will have an enormous long-term impact on your life. So, who should you pick? The old woman, of course. Then, give the car keys to your friend, and stay behind with the romantic interest to wait for the bus!

trouble with moonwalkers and billionaires is when they arrive at the top, their momentum often stops. If they don't manage to find something to parlay, they turn into the kid on the jungle gym who just hangs from the ring. Not coincidentally, this is the same reason that only one-third of Americans are happy at their jobs. When there's no forward momentum in our careers, we get depressed, too.

Great stories build relationships and make people care. Those two things are necessary to change anything.

By teaching tools and problem solving instead of memorization and by hiring only teachers with master's degrees, Finland created a higher educational platform that gave its kids an advantage. That's how its school system shot to number one.*

Good fortune and talent are both ingredients of success, but like any recipe, they can be substituted with clever alternatives. The one irreplaceable ingredient I've found, however, is work.

True success is not defined by how much money do I make, how well do I speak, how well do I deal with the subjects I deal with," he says. "But how great of a father I am.

the secret to harnessing momentum is to build up potential energy, so that unexpected opportunities can be amplified.

Working smart is harder than working hard. It's just less visible, and we care too much about what others see.

Effort for the sake of effort is as foolish a tradition as paying dues. How much better is hard work when it's amplified by a lever? Platforms teach us skills and allow us to focus on being great, rather than reinventing wheels or repeating ourselves.

Intuition is the result of nonconscious pattern recognition,

simplification often makes the difference between good and amazing.