At the height of the dot-com craze, at an “Internet boot camp” near Silicon Valley, a thousand people gathered in a ballroom to learn how to become Internet entrepreneurs. PowerPoint presentation after PowerPoint presentation told the audience how to do it. But the real action was between presentations. During the coffee breaks, participants could go…

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Two unexpected events made her question her decision to take the new job. A close friend died, at the age of fifty, from liver cancer. Before she died, she advised Nathalie to get out of the rut and pressure of her business life. Then, a necessary surgical procedure resulted in a one-month medical leave. Nathalie…

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Julio Gonzales, like many of his fellow students in a one-year midcareer master’s program, approached the end of his sabbatical with a mix of anxiety and anticipation. That year had given all the students a chance to design experiments, to make new connections, and to step back from daily routines. A lot had happened in…

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I did know that I wanted to be part of a community, so I started getting involved in Jewish activities and arts organizations. This broke me of the need to have an institutional affiliation. I learned how to listen more to myself, to reflect on what I wanted to do and what I enjoyed doing….

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The French phrase reculer pour mieux sauter literally means “stepping back to better leap forward.” It expresses how much we need perspective to arrive at the novel recombination of existing elements that defines an invention or creation.[17] Jane Stevens, a thirty-two-year-old with an M.B.A. in finance, knew something was wrong in her life but could…

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