When Coca-Cola was first sold in 1886, nobody thought it could be improved. Nearly a century later, in 1985, New Coke was introduced to replace the original recipe of Coke in order to rebrand the product amidst falling sales——Coke was losing customers to Pepsi, whose sweeter taste was finding     1    . Unfortunately, the Coca-Cola Company saw a significant drop in sales soon after the release of New Coke. Some customers just preferred the “classic” recipe. The old adage(格言), “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” seems to apply here.

Something similar is happening with A Bite of China, a     2     food documentary focusing on the stories, traditions and culture surrounding interesting regional dishes from around China. The first two seasons of the show saw great success. However, when the third season began last month, the reviewers were not so “sweet”. With an entirely new production team, Season Three steers away from(偏离) the show’s core focus on     3     dishes and towards intimate life stories, non-food-related subject matter and even product placement(植入广告).

In the first episode of Season Two, a teenager in the countryside collects honey high up in a tree. The scene is stunningly filmed, telling a moving story about the dangerous     4     to which people go to gather food for their families. In the third season, however, the focus is taken almost completely away from the food. In one of its most infamous episodes, DIY lipstick using questionable ingredients bought online is     5    . Viewer response has been swift and severe, with several commentators wondering whether it is still suitable to call the show a food documentary. The production crew have     6     the changes, claiming that the innovation is meant to keep the show fresh and interesting to an expanding audience. While this may     7     in part, to explain the show’s creative differences from previous seasons, it doesn’t     8     the show’s declining professionalism, which has led to some silly mistakes such as mixing up ingredients or confusing the correct names of regional dishes.

Innovation is generally     9     in industries big and small, but a winning formula that has popular     10     is not necessarily something that requires changes. Innovation is a tool often best used when a new direction is called for. By trying to reinvent the wheel, one might just end up with a flat tire. It’s time that A Bite of China took a page out of Coca-Cola’s playbook and returned to the classic recipe, where success has never tasted so sweet.

（A）

Adventure of a Lifetime

I was driving with a friend recently and telling him about a new book I’m working on, an article I'm writing and this new hobby of adventure motorcycling in the desert.

He interrupted me and said, “How do you stay so    1    about things?” I hadn’t really considered the “why” behind my list of activities. But as I thought about it, I realized that the one aspect each of these projects had to make me so excited was the feeling of being in just a little over my head.

It’s easy to wonder how doing stuff that makes you uncomfortable, and might not even work, is a（n）    2    of motivation. I could not get my friend’s question out of my head and wondered whether I'm wired differently. But there’s something about a sink-or-swim environment that excites me.

I posted on Instagram about    3    getting in a little over my head, and my friend Dallas Hartwig told me about this concept called hormesis, a phenomenon by which something that could significantly damage or even kill you in high doses can make you stronger in low doses, or as the National Institutes of Health puts it, an adaptive response of cells and organisms to a（n）    4    stress. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is not a new concept. It’s well     5    that the way to grow muscle is to split the muscle tissue, and then give it time to    6    .

So what if we did the same thing in other areas of our lives? It makes sense that the business    7    of building muscle is trying new things. When you throw yourself into the deep end of something new, you often face a（n）    8    learning curve. That forces you to grow,    9    , change and develop your skill set. It’s almost    10    if the particular project ends up succeeding, because the very act of taking on something new helps you become better at your work over all.

Although literally hundreds of traps can open a gateway to team disaster, the following traps are among the most common ones that need to be discussed.

Some managers, in their sincere efforts to be good team leaders, make a serious mistake: they withdraw from their group and     1     avoid interacting with team members. They wrongly assume that the best way they can help the team become more self-directed is by personally becoming less     2    .

A team can become so focused on achieving its own goals that it does not consider the     3     its actions may have on other groups or organizations. Outsiders see the team as arrogant and cruel. Insiders see the team as effective and misunderstood. Overall, the team’s belief in its own     4     has a damaging effect on the performance of the organization as a whole.

In this trap, a team may regularly make decision on which no following action is ever taken. Members are then frustrated by the collective     5     of responsibility. In instances where action is taken and the execution is poor or a mistake is made, no one takes responsibility. It is rarely clear who is responsible for     6     action items, and when an action item is regarded as the responsibility of the entire team, nothing happens.

Failure to see the “big picture” can lead a team to     7     strategies that help improve its own performance but leave the rest of the organization in a mess. Not having the information that allows seeing the forest rather than the trees can lead to suspect plans and poorly reasoned decision.

Teams that have a tendency to repeatedly postpone difficult decisions will find that their options become increasingly     8    . Ironically, by hesitating, the team finally makes a decision—by default rather than by informed choices.

Tricks to increase employee involvement and participation—like suggestion boxes—can actually have the     9     effect. When individuals are rewarded for contributing suggestions through cash, there is little incentive (激励) for team members to work together to     10     problems and implement solutions.

The business of beauty is shining everywhere. Women are spending much of their time and money on buying beauty products in order to get     1    from others. Even in the third world countries, women living below the poverty line, buy cheap wig and substandard beauty products, which do more harm to their skin than good.

Youthful beauty     2     with time, but, with cultivation, inner beauty grows rich. The good news is that it’s never too late or too soon to lay much     3     on your inner beauty. A good place to start is to     4     self-awareness by locating your passions and using them     5    . Then your dinner beauty will grow and radiate to your outer self.

Believe that you have an inner self to explore and that you are willing to let yourself develop your innate talents and gifts. Here are a few quotes about     6     ideas to consider carefully.

“Go     7     into the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you     8     your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler!”--Henry David Thoreau.

“Often people    9     to live their lives backward: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the     10    . You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.”--Manager Young.

Antoine de Saint­Exupéry, who     1     aeroplanes when he was young, was a French writer.    2     by his plane crash, he published The Little Prince, one of the bestselling books. The narrator (叙述人) of the story is a     3     person. He is not used to those adults who are too     4     without imagination to understand his drawings by themselves. The failure of Drawing Number One and Two made him     5     and choose another profession     6     a painter. On his all­alone journey, the little prince meets different kinds of people. From these people he gets a     7     that the grown­ups are very odd (古怪的). Maybe it’s more     8     for us to imagine, and for more to think over.

Secrets are bad for your health

I grew up in a Midwestern town where the popular wisdom was to only talk about what was pleasant and to keep secrets，if necessary，to make that happen.This meant staying silent when someone offended you，rarely     1     negative feelings and smiling a little more than is necessary. It also meant     2     room for airing any sort of dirty laundry，especially not the kinds of personal secrets that keep people up at night.

Many of us like to believe that sweeping unpleasant truths under the rug might make them     3     go away. Instead，keeping secrets--especially heavy ones--can spin an even more     4     web of isolation and deception. So why do we do it？

The truth can hurt. But in many situations，it s better to get it out and let the     5     start，rather than allowing it to become more dangerous.The burden of     6     in the truth doesn't just disappear. It hides itself in the back of your mind and can cause a number of     7       to your life and health.

"If the situations in your daily life are regular     8     of the secret，and you find it stressful to keep it，then yes，it can have emotional and physical consequences.” says Dr.Dean McKay. “Some people also find keeping secrets stressful out of a general     9     that they will 'slip’. This     10     and recurring thought of the secret can in itself be stressful.”