What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus.

We are approaching levels - if we're not beyond levels - of threshold for the number of messages that consumers can take in in a given day. There is a kind of hunger for some kind of new approach to getting the word out about something.

Those with health insurance are overinsured and their behavior is distorted by moral hazard. Those without health insurance use their own money to make decisions based on an assessment of their needs. The insured are wasteful. The uninsured are prudent. So what's the solution? Make the insured a little more like the uninsured.

It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.

The biggest mistake we make is trying to square the way we feel about something today with the way we felt about it yesterday. You shouldn’t even bother doing it. You should just figure out the way you feel today and if it happens to comply with what you thought before, fine. If it contradicts it, whatever. Life goes on.

Lands' End has undergone three major changes over the past couple of decades. The first was the introduction of an 800 number, in 1978; the second was express delivery, in 1994; and the third was the introduction of a Web site, in 1995. The first two innovations cut the average transaction time-the time between the moment of ordering and the moment the goods are received-from three weeks to four days. The third innovation has cut the transaction time from four days to, well, four days.

Outlier are those who have been given opportunities-- -and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.