Young people beginning a career need to realize that there are lots of "buses" in life. More often than not, selecting which one to be on determines success or failure, joy or despair.

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.

When we forgive, the slave we free is ourselves.

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

Fear shuts people down. When you feel safe, your brain is free to soar. When you feel in danger, your brain goes into survival mode, not peak performance mode. Too many people feel unsafe at work, under toxic pressures, and stretched too thin. They are literally about to snap. Within an atmosphere of trust and what I call connection, a supervisor can create conditions under which people's brains can set aside fear and fly high.

No work is "most important." Or, put differently, all work is important but work done poorly becomes most important.

In order to do what really matters to you, you have to, first of all, know what really matters to you.