The word amateur derives from the Latin word amator, which means lover, devoted friend, or someone who is in avid pursuit of an objective. In the original sense, an amateur is someone who does something for the love of it. Amateurs do what they do because they have a passion for it, not because it pays the bills. True amateurs, in other words, are people who have found the Element in something other than their jobs.

The Grace Living Center story: children in class inside of a retirement home = higher reading scores for children, and lower medication levels for adults.

Research indicates that, as long as we keep using our brains in an active way, we continue to build neural pathways as we get older. This gives us not only the ongoing potential for creative thought, but also an additional incentive for continuing to stretch ourselves. There is strong evidence to suggest that the creative functions of our brain stay strong deep into our lives: we can recover and renew many of our latent aptitudes by deliberately exercising them.

Tribe membership as I define it here helps people become more themselves, leading them toward a greater sense of personal identity. On the other hand, we can easily lose our identity in a crowd, including a group of fans.

Great creative teams are diverse, dynamic, and distinct.

Dylan listened to Guthrie for the rest of that day "as if in a trance." It was not only a moment of revelation about Guthrie; it was a moment of truth for Dylan. "I felt like I had discovered some essence of self-command, that I was in the internal pocket of the system feeling more like myself than ever before. A voice in my head said 'So this is the game,'"

In his landmark work Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Dr. Csikszentmikalyi writes of "a state of mind when consciousness is harmoniously ordered, and [people] want to pursue whatever they are doing for its own sake." What Dr. Csikszentmikalyi calls "flow" "happens when psychic energy -- or attention -- is invested in realistic goals, and when skills match the opportunities for action."

Imagination is not the same as creativity. Creativity takes the process of imagination to another level. My definition of creativity is "the process of having original ideas that have value." Imagination can be entirely internal...You can think of creativity as applied imagination.

One myth is that only special people are creative. This is not true. Everyone is born with tremendous capacities for creativity. The trick is to develop these capacities.

How to make a great first impression: say PM, deliver AM.

Admit a weakness. It will disarm some people's resistance. It will strengthen every claim of strength you make.

Nothing worthwhile comes easy. Push. If it hurts, good.

The sentiment that life is what you make it assumes you control almost everything. You don't. You cannot control your life, but you can control your responses.

Do what you love, and the pleasure of doing what you love will follow.

Be consistent: hours, habits, behaviors.

Always, on time.

Master the welcome. In one survey, 96 percent of people of the clients who said they felt "very welcome" when they entered the company's office, said they were "very satisfied" with their overall experience

How to Give an Excellent Ten-Minute Speech: Write out a twenty-minute speech. Cut out the weakest half: the weakest stories, the unnecessary words -- your least favorite half. Then cut out a minute, and give a nine minute speech. You will deliver with more intensity and energy, because you have less time. In speaking, as in so many things in life, less is more.