1.

1)working for what I wanted, not for what others wanted me to do; 2)coming up with the best independent opinions I could muster to move toward my goals; 3) stress - testing my opinions by having the smartest people I could find challenge them so I could find out where I was wrong; 4) being wary about overconfidence, and good at not knowing; and 5) wrestling with reality, experiencing the results of my decisions, and reflecting on what I did to produce them so that I could improve.

Among the five steps of the author’s thinking-process, the first is beyond the ken of most people, while the second is based on the rule ‘listening to all,talk with a few and make your own judgment ’,given by Mr. Xiao-lai Lee. The third is out of the question to many.The fourth can be learned from working experience,for everything is uncertain in the world and you can never be sure of anything. The last one is also not challenging for most adults.

2.I learned that failure is by and large due to not accepting and successfully dealing with the realities of life, and that achieving success is simply a matter of accepting and successfully dealing with all my realities.

the real starting-point of the way to freedom

3.I learned that finding out what is true, regardless of what that is, including all the stuff most people think is bad—like mistakes and personal weaknesses—is good because I can then deal with these things so that they don’t stand in my way.

the difference between the be-good Type & the be-better Type

4.I learned that one of the greatest sources of problems in our society arises from people having loads of wrong theories in their heads—often theories that are critical of others—that they won’t test by speaking to the relevant people about them. Instead, they talk behind people’s backs, which leads to pervasive misinformation.

It’s universal resulting from Man’s nature, but worst in Eastern Culture

5.Most people would be insulted if you told them that they don't have integrity—but how many people do you know who tell people what they really think?

6.I believe that our society's “mistakephobia” is crippling, a problem that begins in most elementary schools, where we learn to learn what we are taught rather than to form our own goals and to figure out how to achieve them. We are fed with facts and tested and those who make the fewest mistakes are considered to be the smart ones, so we learn that it is embarrassing to not know and to make mistakes. Our education system spends virtually no time on how to learn from mistakes, yet this is critical to real learning. As a result, school typically doesn’t prepare young people for real life. In my opinion, that’s why so many students who succeed in school fail in life.

Well-written! It reveals the truth of education. However, the education system laid by the big boss tried hard, even spared no efforts to cover the lid, for facing the truth is dreadful...

7.I learned that the popular picture of success—which is like a glossy photo of an ideal man or woman out of a Ralph Lauren catalog, with a bio attached listing all of their accomplishments like going to the best prep schools and an Ivy League college, and getting all the answers right on tests—is an inaccurate picture of the typical successful person. I met a number of great people and learned that none of them were born great—they all made lots of mistakes and had lots weaknesses—and that great people become great by looking at their mistakes and weaknesses and figuring out how to get around them.

For most people,including me,the picture is so perfect and shining that everyone try desperately to get it.Unfortunately, the other side of the coin ,perhaps the truer aspect is always in the eyes of the few.

8.For me, money has always been very important to the point that I could have these basics covered and never very important beyond that. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think that having more is good --it’s just that I don’t think it’s a big deal.  They were just like cherries on the cake.Also, from having come from having next-to-nothing to having a lot, I have developed a strong belief that, all things being equal, offering equal opportunity is fundamental to being good.

Our greed is never satisfied to pay much attention to the CHERRIES though most can hardly get enough BREAD. For few ones, fighting their way to the top is much enjoyable than being born with a golden key on his mouth.The reason why we cannot be wealthy is that we possess much lower degrees of value system.

9.I found that if I accepted the realities rather than wished that they didn’t exist and if I learned how to work with them rather than fight them, I could figure out how to get to my goals.

Live with Reality and make friends with Time.

10.Whether it is knowing how people really think and behave when dealing with them, or how things really work on a material level—so that if we do X then Y will happen—understanding reality gives us the power to get what we want out of life, or at least to dramatically improve our odds of success.

To do right things is more important than to do things right, and “right makes might”.

11.Truth — more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality — is the essential foundation for producing good outcomes.

However harsh of embarrassing the reality is,face up and live out the rule.To accept the things that you cannot change,to change the things that you can,and to distinguish the difference between them.

12.It seems to me that, in relation to nature, man has the intelligence of a mold growing on an apple—man can’t even make a mosquito, let alone scratch the surface of understanding the universe. Though man is unique, he is part of nature and subject to most of the same laws of nature that affect other species.

Who knows for sure that, someone is looking at Man with great interest,just as we watch the crowds of ants? So, don’t be overestimated about the wisdom of human being,and not be overconfident.

13.I’ve got a non-traditional sense of good and bad: “good,” to me, means operating consistently with the natural laws, while “bad” means operating inconsistently with these laws. In other words, for something to be “good” it must be grounded in reality. And if something is in conflict with reality—for example, if morality is in conflict with reality—it is “bad,” i.e., it will not produce good outcomes.

It’s a question on science rather than morality.

14.Based on how I observe both nature and humanity working, I believe that what is bad and most punished are those things that don’t work because they are at odds with the laws of the universe and they impede evolution.

The law and evolution speaks itself and cannot be changed or prevented within the capacity of human, kind of God’s work.

15.Darwin is reported to have said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”...I also believe that all things in nature have innate attributes that are both good and bad, with their goodness and their badness depending on what they are used for. For example, the thorns on a rose bush, the stinger on a bee, the aggressiveness of a lion, the timidity of a gazelle are all both good and bad, depending on their applications. ...Over time, nature evolves toward the right balance through the process of natural selection—e.g., an overly aggressive animal will die prematurely, as will an overly timid animal.

But a celebrity said ,only the paranoia can survive nowadays. Like Steven Jobs etc,it is the extreme devotion to work that highlights his life.Perhaps in the long river of evolution it works? Man is never satisfied and he will never stop grabbing or exploiting form nature until  the ruin of the surroundings.

16.Most of us are born with attributes that both help us and hurt us, depending on their applications,and the more extreme the attribute, the more extreme the potential good and bad outcomes these attributes are likely to produce. For example, highly creative, goal- oriented people who are good at imagining the big picture often can easily get tripped up on the details of daily life, while highly pragmatic, task-oriented people who are great with the details might not be creative.

There’s no such things as perfect.It’s a shocking insight, for I am always enthusiastically after the word.In English, the closest meaning next to it,is vulnerable.

17.It is extremely important to one’s happiness and success to know oneself—most importantly to understand one’s own values and abilities—and then to find the right fits. We all have things that we value that we want and we all have strengths and weaknesses that affect our paths for getting them.

By the way, the definition of success should be given by individuals, not society or a kind of so-called successful people on TV screen or magazines.

18.The most important quality that differentiates successful people from unsuccessful people is our capacity to learn and adapt to these things. The quality of our lives depends on the quality of the decisions we make.

19.Reality + Dreams + Determination = A Successful Life