What about regular professionals, who just want to do what they do as well as they can?

What is the alternative to understanding the complexity of the world?

Human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and speeding change.

When I do an operation, it's half a dozen people. When it goes beautifully, it's like a symphony, with everybody playing their part.

My biggest fear, that 27 percent of Americans under 65 have an existing health condition that, without the protections of the Affordable Care Act, would mean they would - could be automatically excluded from insurance coverage. Before the ACA, they wouldn't have been able to get insurance coverage on the individual market, you know, if you're a freelancer or if you had a small business or the like.

Over time I learned that there are two very different satisfactions that you can have in your life. One is the satisfaction of becoming skilled at something. It almost doesn't matter what the terrain is. There is a deep, soul-feeding resonance in mastery itself, whether in teaching, writing a complicated software program, coaching a baseball team, or marshalling a group of people to start a new business.

What is needed, however, isn't just that people working together be nice to each other. It is discipline. Discipline is hard--harder than trustworthiness and skill and perhaps even than selflessness. We are by nature flawed and inconstant creatures. We can't even keep from snacking between meals. We are not built for discipline. We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at.