Daniel H. Pink

Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.

Now it's easy for someone to set up a storefront and reach the entire world in very modest ways. So these technologies that we thought would dis-intermediate traditional sellers gave more people the tools to be sellers. It also changed the balance of power between sellers and buyers.

Studying design has made me a much, much more astute observer of this aspect of business. And I'm working mightily to improve my empathic skills. I've dramatically improved my ability to read facial expressions - and I'm trying to be a better, more attentive listener.

The point of college is more to acquire skills than to acquire domain knowledge. One of the skills that is going to be most necessary: you have to be able to read with rigor and write with clarity. You have to be able to communicate. To make an argument, whether it's in a written piece or in front of a group of people.

There is a huge body of evidence showing that people do better in their work when they know why they're doing it in the first place. They do better when they see what they're doing contributes to something in the world.

People don't know how to listen, and it's not their fault. In school, we learn how to read, we learn how to write - but nobody teaches you how to listen.

For creative tasks, the best approach is often just to hire great people and get out of their way.

The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.

I happen to be extremely left-brained; my instinct is to draw a chart rather than a picture. I'm trying to get my right-brain muscles into shape. I actually think this shift toward right-brain abilities has the potential to make us both better off and better in a deeper sense.

My generation's parents told their children, "Become an accountant, a lawyer, or an engineer; that will give you a solid foothold in the middle class." But these jobs are now being sent overseas. So in order to make it today, you have to do work that's hard to outsource, hard to automate.

The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road. Indeed, most of the scandals and misbehavior that have seemed endemic to modern life involve shortcuts.

We live in a world of breathtaking material plenty. That has freed hundreds of millions of people from day-to-day struggles and liberated us to pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.

To sell well is to convince someone else to part with resources—not to deprive that person, but to leave him better off in the end.

Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.