When crime drops dramatically in New York for no apparent reason, or when a movie made on a shoestring budget ends up making hundreds of millions of dollars - we're surprised. I'm saying, don't be surprised. This is the way social epidemics work.

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.

What does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children?

People are experience-rich and theory-poor. I help people organize / make sense of their experiences.

Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.

The conventional explanation for Jewish success, of course, is that Jews come from a literate, intellectual culture. They are famously "the people of the book." There is surely something to that. But it wasn't just the children of rabbis who went to law school. It was the children of garment workers. And their critical advantage in climbing the professional ladder wasn't the intellectual rigor you get from studying the Talmud. It was the practical intelligence and savvy you get from watching your father sell aprons on Hester Street.

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