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Executing well means that you pick a reasonable direction, move quickly to learn what works and what doesn’t, and make adjustments to get to your desired outcome.

Inaction almost always leads to failure, while making a decision promises at the very least the possibility of a positive outcome.

…lucky people tend to be open to opportunities (or insights) that come along spontaneously, whereas unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine, fixated on certain specific outcomes.

…traditional incentives of power and money – carrots and sticks – help. But they fall short of inspiring human behavior that goes beyond outcome-driven self-interest.

Luck and risk are both the reality that every outcome in life is guided by forces other than individual effort.

…making quick, opportunistic, tangible gambits only modestly related to a desired outcome – is in many instances the most effective way of tackling big problems.

Simple equally weighted formulas based on existing statistics or common sense are often very good predictors of significant outcomes.

In addition to improving the emotional quality of life, the deliberate avoidance of exposure to short-term outcomes improves the quality of both decisions and outcomes.

…people expect to have stronger emotional reactions (including regret) to an outcome that is produced by action than to the same outcome when it is produced by inaction.

Those of us who aren’t self-sacrificing saints will work on a group project only to the extent that we feel our individual efforts will contribute to a meaningful outcome.