The best advice I ever got... [Indra Nooyi]

My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don't get defensive. You don't scream. You are trying to understand and listen because at your basic core you are saying, "Maybe they are saying something to me that I'm not hearing." So "assume positive intent" has been a huge piece of advice for me.

In business, sometimes in the heat of the moment, people say things. You can either misconstrue what they're saying and assume they are trying to put you down, or you can say, "Wait a minute. Let me really get behind what they are saying to understand whether they're reacting because they're hurt, upset, confused, or they don't understand what it is I've asked them to do." If you react from a negative perspective - because you didn't like the way they reacted - then it just becomes two negatives fighting each other. But when you assume positive intent, I think often what happens is the other person says, "Hey, wait a minute, maybe I'm wrong in reacting the way I do because this person is really making an effort."

- Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, Pepsico
Excerpt from Fortune Magazine

As much as you are fired up about making changes in your life, if you do not carve out the time in your schedule, it will never happen.

- Pamela Slim, author of 'Get a Life' blog

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

- Steve Jobs, commencement speech at Stanford University. Steve is the co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

- Mark Twain

"Success is all about employee freedom. You have to fight the encroachment of rules and bureaucracy and people who want to limit us at every place. The fundamental risk in a technology company is the loss of creativity. You have to take a lot of little risks, break the rules, and push the values of employee freedom."

- Reed Hastings, Netflix founder

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

- Francis Bacon

Who Says Kids May You Happy?

Interesting article from Newsweek. The author considers both perspectives - couples with and without children.

Personally, I agree with one of the comments, "...Everyone has to make the decision they can live with. I think it is nonsense that childless people are happier than people with children or vice versa. People who have children and are unhappy would be unhappy without children too, because there are people who will never be content with what they have...The grass is always greener on the other side, right?..."

"If most are not happy, then it's not because they do or do not have children, it's because they chose to not find the joy in what they have..."

Read the full article here - note: the comments are almost as interesting as the article.