We overlook just how large a role we all play--and by 'we' I mean society--in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

We need to look at the subtle, the hidden, and the unspoken.

The successful are those who have been given opportunities.

A lot of what is most beautiful about the world arises from struggle.

If we think about emotion this way - as outside-in, not inside out - it is possible to understand how some people can have an enormous amount of influence over others. Some of us, after all, are very good at expressiing emotions and feelings, which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.

David Epstein, the author of the best book on athletics in recent memory - "The Sports Gene" - wrote to me to say that he thinks I'm being overly generous. He points out that, for years, there used to be an "all-star challenge" on television, in which the best professional athletes from a variety of sports competed in a kind of makeshift decathlon.

The key to good decision making is not knowledge... It's whether our work fulfills us.