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“By my definition, originality involves introducing and advancing an idea that’s relatively unusual within a particular domain, and that has the potential to improve it.”

The faults in defaults. “To get Firefox or Chrome, you have to demonstrate some resourcefulness and download a different browser. Instead of accepting the default, you take a bit of initiative to seek out an option that might be better. And that act of initiative, however tiny, is a window into what you do at work.”

“The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists.”

“Regardless of political ideologies, when a candidate seemed destined to win, people liked him more. When his odds dropped, they liked him less.”

“Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit.”

“Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.”

“The biggest barrier to originality is not idea generation—it’s idea selection.”

“When it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality.”

“Our intuitions are only accurate in domains where we have a lot of experience.”

“Power involves exercising control or authority over others; status is being respected and admired.”

“To form alliances with opposing groups, it’s best to temper the cause, cooling it as much as possible. Yet to draw allies into joining the cause itself, what’s needed is a moderately tempered message that is neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.”

“In general, we tend to be overconfident about our own invulnerability to harm.”

Some lessons on groupthink. “The evidence suggests that social bonds don’t drive groupthink; the culprits are overconfidence and reputational concerns.”

“Bridgewater has prevented groupthink by inviting dissenting opinions from every employee in the company.”

The positive power of negative thinking. “Most people assume it’s better to be a strategic optimist than a defensive pessimist. Yet Norem finds that although defensive pessimists are more anxious and less confident in analytical, verbal, and creative tasks, they perform just as well as strategic optimists.”

— Adam Grant, Originals How Non-Conformists Move The World