I would suggest that excellence occurs in direct proportion to necessary suffering, but in inverse proportion to unnecessary suffering or toxic stress. Connection is the best antidote to unnecessary suffering.

All connections matter, but the people you depend upon matter most.

It is the greatest feeling in the world. When we shine, we defy death for the moment. We enter into a state of immersion in the craft we ply, a state in which we become one with what we do.

From the biological standpoint, people deprived of the human moment in their day-to-day business dealings, actually in all domains of their lives, are losing brain cells - literally - while those who cultivate the human moment are growing them.

A human moment is a term I invented to distinguish in-person communication from electronic. Human moments are exponentially more powerful than electronic ones. I mean face-to-face, in-person contact and communication. I have identified several modern paradoxes and the first is that, for various reasons, we have grown electronically superconnected but we have simultaneously grown emotionally disconnected from each other.

Lack of respect for the worker. This nourishes disconnection, fear, anger, phoniness, and all the bad stuff that impedes excellence.

Several elements of the ADD mind favor creativity....As mentioned earlier, the term 'attention deficit' is a misnomer. It is a matter of attention inconsistency. While it is true that the ADD mind wanders when not engaged, it is also the case that the ADD mind fastens on to its subject fiercely when it is engaged. A child with ADD may sit for hours meticulously putting together a model airplane.