What do Americans look for in a car? I've heard many answers when I've asked this question. The answers include excellent safety ratings, great gas mileage, handling, and cornering ability, among others. I don't believe any of these. That's because the first principle of the Culture Code is that the only effective way to understand what people truly mean is to ignore what they say. This is not to suggest that people intentionally lie or misrepresent themselves. What it means is that, when asked direct questions about their interests and preferences, people tend to give answers they believe the questioner wants to hear. Again, this is not because they intend to mislead. It is because people respond to these questions with their cortexes, the parts of their brains that control intelligence rather than emotion or instinct. They ponder a question, they process a question, and when they deliver an answer, it is the product of deliberation. They believe they are telling the truth. A lie detector would confirm this. In most cases, however, they aren't saying what they mean. -- The culture code.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. -- Thomas Edison

640K ought to be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates, 1981

All great things require great dedication. -- Chuck Norris(?)

Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline. -- Bill Clinton

You can’t get to version 500 if you don’t start with a version 1. -- BetterExplained.com

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. ~Ralph Nader

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker