What do the world's most successful people all have in common?

      By examining the work habits of over 150 greatest writers and artists and scientists, the researchers including Standford Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer found that high achievers like Robert Moses turn out to be all alike:

Busy ! Busy!

{#blank#}1{#/blank#}In a study of general managers in industry, JohnKotter reported that many of them worked 60 to 65 hours per week—which translates into at least six 10-hour days. The ability and willingness to workdifficult and tiring hours has characterized many powerful figures. Energy andstrength provide many advantages to those seeking to build power.

Just Say No!

      The difference between successful peopleand very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything. And that's what gives them the time to accomplish so much.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} And focus means saying “no” to a lot ofdistractions (分神).

Know What You Are!

      Ignore your weakness and keep improvingyour strengths. Don't waste time exploring skill areas where you have littlecompetence. Instead, focus on—and build on—your strengths.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

Create Good Luck!

      Luck is not magical—there is a scienceto it. Richard Wiseman studied lucky people for his book Luck Factor, and brokedown what they do right.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} By being more outgoing, open to new ideas,following the feeling that something is true, being optimistic, lucky peoplecreate possibilities.

    Does applying these principles to yourlife actually work? Wiseman created a “luck school” to test the ideas—and itwas a success. In total, 80 percent of people who attended Luck School said that their luck had increased. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

A. Spend enough time to improve yourweakness.

B. Achievement requires focus.

C. On average, these people reportedthat their luck had increased by more than 40 percent.

D. They never stop working and they neverlose a minute.

E. Busy people are more likely to belucky.

F. This means knowing who you are, whatyou are and what you are good at.

G. Certain personality types are luckierbecause they behave in a way that offers the chance for good opportunities.

I had the meanest mother in the whole world. While other kidsate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs or toast. When others hadcokes and candy for lunch, I had to eat a sandwich. As you can guess, my supperwas different from the other kids' also. But at least, I wasn't alone in mysufferings. My sister and two brothers had the same mean mother as I did.

My mother insisted upon knowing where we were at all times.You'd think we were on a chain gang. She had to know who our friends were andwhere we were going. She insisted if we said we'd be gone an hour, that we begone one hour or less — not one hour and one minute.

We had to wear clean clothes and take a bath everyday. The otherkids always wore their clothes for days. We reached the height of insultsbecause she made our clothes herself, just to save money.

The worst is yet to come. We had to be in bed by nine each nightand up at eight the next morning. We couldn't sleep till noon like our friends.So while they slept — my mother actually had the nerve to break the ChildLabor Law. She made us work. We had to wash dishes, make beds, learn to cookand all sorts of cruel things. I believe she laid awake at night thinking upmean things to do to us.

Through the years, things didn't improve a bit. We could not liein bed, "sick" like our friends did, and miss school. Our marks inschool had to be up to par. Our friends' report cards had beautiful colors onthem, black for passing, red for failing. My mother, being as different as shewas, would settle for nothing less than ugly black marks.

As the years rolled by, first one and then the other of us wasput to shame. We were graduated from high school. With our mother behind us,talking, hitting and demanding respect, none of us was allowed the pleasure ofbeing a drop-out.

My mother was a complete failure as a mother. Out of fourchildren, a couple of us attained some higher education. None of us have everbeen arrested or divorced. Each of my brothers served his time in the serviceof this country. She forced us to grow up into God-fearing, educated, honestadults. Using this as a background, I am now trying to raise my three children.I am filled with pride when my children call me mean. Why? Because now I thankGod every day for giving me the meanest mother in the whole world.

    In 1978, I was 18 and was working as a nurse in a small town about 270 km away from Sydney, Australia. I was looking forward to having five fays off from duty. Unfortunately, the only one train a day back to my home in Sydney had already left. So I thought I'd hitch a ride (搭便车).

    I waited by the side of the highway for three hours but no one stopped for me. Finally, a man walked over and introduced himself as Gordon. He said that although he couldn't give me a lift, I should come back to his house for lunch. He noticed me standing for hours in the November heat and thought I must be hungry. I was doubtful as a young girl but he assured （使…放心）me I was safe, and he also offered to help me find a lift home afterwards. When we arrived at his house, he made us sandwiches. After lunch, he helped me find a lift home.

    Twenty-five years later, in 2003, while I was driving to a nearby town one day, I saw an elderly man standing in the glaring heat, trying to hitch a ride. I thought it was another chance to repay someone for the kindness I'd been given decades earlier. I pulled over and picked him up. I made him comfortable on the back seat and offered him some water.

    After a few moments of small talk, the man said to me, “You haven't changed a bit, even your red hair is still the same.” I couldn't remember where I'd met him. He then told me he was the man who had given me lunch and helped me find a lift all those years ago. It was Gordon.

    Dr. Sasaki knew the first-night effect probably has something to do with how humans evolved.

    The puzzle was what benefit would be gained from it when performance might be affected the following day. She also knew from previous work conducted on birds and dolphins that these animals put half of their brains to sleep at a time so that they can rest while remaining alert enough to avoid predators (捕食者). This led her to wonder if people might be doing the same thing. To take a closer look, her team studied 35 healthy people as they slept in the unfamiliar environment of the university's Department of Psychological Sciences. The participants each slept in the department for two nights and were carefully monitored with techniques that looked at the activity of their brains. Dr. Sasaki found, as expected, the participants slept less well on their first night than they did on their second, taking more than twice as long to fall asleep and sleeping less overall. During deep sleep, the participants' brains behaved in a similar manner seen in birds and dolphins. On the first night only, the left hemispheres (半球) of their brains did not sleep nearly as deeply as their right hemispheres did.

    Curious if the left hemispheres were indeed remaining awake to process information detected in the surrounding environment, Dr. Sasaki re-ran the experiment while presenting the sleeping participants with a mix of regularly timed beeps (蜂鸣声) of the same tone and irregular beeps of a different tone during the night. She worked out that, if the left hemisphere was staying alert to keep guard in a strange environment, then it would react to the irregular beeps by stirring people from sleep and would ignore the regularly timed ones. This is precisely what she found.

    The lives of the Ancient Greeks revolved(运转) around Eris, a concept by which they defined the universe. They believed that the world existed in a condition of opposites. If there was good, then there was evil； if there was love, then there was hatred; joy, then sorrow; war, then peace; and so on. The Greeks believed that good Eris occurred when one held a balanced outlook on life and coped with problems as they arose. It was a kind of ease of living that came from trying to bring together the great opposing forces in nature. Bad Eris was evident in the violent conditions that ruled men's lives. Although these things were found in nature and sometimes could not be controlled, it was believed that bad Eris occurred when one ignored a problem, letting it grow larger until it destroyed not only that person, but his family as well. The Ancient Greeks saw Eris as a goddess: Eris, the Goddess of Discord, better known as Trouble.

    One myth that expresses this concept of bad Eris deals with the marriage of King Peleus and the river goddess Thetis. Zeus, the supreme ruler, learns that Thetis would bear a child strong enough to destroy its father. Not wanting to father his own ruin, Zeus convinces Thetis to marry a human, a mortal(凡人) whose child could never challenge the gods. He promises her, among other things, the greatest wedding in all of Heaven and Earth and allows the couple to invite whomever they please. This is one of the first mixed marriages of Greek Mythology and the lesson learned from it still applies today. They do invite everyone . . . except Eris, the Goddess of Discord. In other words, instead of facing the problems brought on by a mixed marriage, they turn their backs on them. They refused to deal directly with their problems and the result is tragic. In her fury(狂怒), Eris arrives, ruins the wedding, causes a jealous argument between the three major goddesses over a golden apple, and sets in place the conditions that lead to the Trojan War. The war would take place 20 years in the future, but it would result in the death of the only child of the bride and groom, Achilles. Eris would destroy the parents' hopes for their future, leaving the couple with no legal heirs (继承人) to the throne.

    Hence, when we are told, “If you don't invite trouble, trouble comes,” it means that if we don't deal with our problems, our problems will deal with us .with a revenge! It is easy to see why the Greeks considered many of their myths learning myths, for this one teaches us the best way to defeat that which can destroy us.

    Tom arrived at the bus station quite early for the London bus. The bus for London would not leave until five to twelve. He saw a lot of people waiting in the station. Some were standing in lines, others were walking about. There was a group of school-girls. Their teacher was trying to keep them in order. Tom looked around but there was nowhere for him to sit.

    He walked into the station cafe. He looked up at the clock there. It was only twenty to twelve. He found a seat and sat down, facing a large mirror(镜子) on the wall. Just then, John, one of Tom's friends, came in and sat with Tom.

    "What time is your bus?" asked John.

    "Oh, there is plenty of time yet," answered Tom.

    "Oh, I'll get you some more tea then," said John.

    They talked while drinking. Then Tom looked at the clock again.

    "Good heavens! It's going backward!" he cried. "A few minutes ago it was twenty to twelve and now it's half past eleven."

    "You are looking at the clock in the mirror," said John.

    Tom wanted to kick himself for being so foolish. The next bus was not to leave for another hour. He has never liked mirror since then.