It's Not About How Smart You Are.

There Is This Tremendous Body Of Knowledge In The World Of Academia Where Extraordinary Numbers Of Incredibly Thoughtful People Have Taken The Time To Examine On A Really Profound Level The Way We Live Our Lives And Who We Are And Where We've Been. That Brilliant Learning Sometimes Gets Trapped In Academia And Never Sees The Light Of Day.

Superstar Lawyers And Math Whizzes And Software Entrepreneurs Appear At First Blush To Lie Outside Ordinary Experience. But They Don't. They Are Products Of History And Community, Of Opportunity And Legacy. Their Success Is Not Exceptional Or Mysterious. It Is Grounded In A Web Of Advantages And Inheritances, Some Deserved, Some Not, Some Earned, Some Just Plain Lucky - But All Critical To Making Them Who They Are. The Outlier, In The End, Is Not An Outlier At All.

Incompetence Annoys Me. Overconfidence Terrifies Me.

It's Not How Much Money We Make That Ultimately Makes Us Happy Between Nine And Five. It's Whether Or Not Our Work Fulfills Us. Being A Teacher Is Meaningful.

The Key To Good Decision Making Is Not Knowledge. It Is Understanding. We Are Swimming In The Former. We Are Desperately Lacking In The Latter.