For every rule followed, examine the possibility that the opposite might be similarly interesting. Not necessarily better, just different. In the same way, you can try the opposite or the extreme of what’s suggested in these pages and it will likely be just as fruitful.

The advice is quite simple. When you are in a tough place, whether it’s a drawdown/downswing, lacking discipline, feeling desperate, having the urge to gamble, or feeling paralyzed and unable to make the right decision – basically any situation when you’re at your worst and feel miles away from your best – it’s in those moments when you need to fin

In the style of the inversion approach described above, Bernays did not ask, “How do I sell more cigarettes to women?” Instead, he wondered, if women bought and smoked cigarettes, what else would have to be true? What would have to change in the world to make smoking desirable to women and socially acceptable? Then—a step farther—once he knew what