It’s okay. Let your ego push you to be the initiator. But tell your ego that the best way to get something shipped is to let other people take the credit. The real win for you (and your ego) is seeing something get shipped, not in getting the credit when it does.
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team.
- Steve Ballmer
About the only thing ordinary salespeople agree upon is the idea that you must sell yourself first.
- Jerry Vass
Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.
- Oprah Winfrey
God wants you to have a good life, a life filled with love, joy, peace, and fulfillment. That doesn’t mean it will always be easy, but it does mean that it will always be good.
- Joel Olsteen
Cisco’s collaboration with AT&T and GI will result in a New World network that will fundamentally change the way communications services are delivered to the consumer market.
- John Chambers
In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.
- Ben Horowitz
Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.
- Steve Jobs
When we face with a steady eye the difficulties which lie before us, we may derive new confidence from remembering those we have already overcome.
- Winston Churchill
Whatever the trend in exchange rates or whatever the external factors, a manufacturing company is always faced with the mission of transforming itself into a company that can produce higher value-added to absorb the increase in the cost of living in the country it’s operating in.
- Fujio Mitarai
Watching how customers actually use a product provides much more reliable information than can be gleaned from a verbal interview or a focus group.
- Clayton M. Christensen
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
- Benjamin Franklin
If we don’t end war, war will end us.
- Winston Churchill
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
- Oprah Winfrey
Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.
- Elon Musk
It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.
- John C. Maxwell
The difference between a stranger sending you a message that you might be interested in at a very low volume level, no repetition, just sending it to very few people, and that being done as spam – those things get close enough that you want to be careful never to filter out something that’s legitimate.
- Bill Gates
Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you’ve got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.
- Jerry Seinfeld
The Chinese people have always been determined to forge ahead.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Recovery continues to gain momentum on a global basis.
- John Chambers
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
- Winston Churchill
The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE.
- Winston Churchill
If I had to do it over again, I would have done the same but earlier. It is never too early to start something. The sooner you begin, the sooner you get your experience.
- Warren Buffett
Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, ‘Boy, those were great old days.’ Well, you know, we’re living in the good old days.
- Joel Olsteen
Every day were saying, ‘How can we keep this customer happy?’ How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don’t, somebody else will.
- Bill Gates
The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say.
- Sam Walton
The failure to strangle Bolshevism at its birth and to bring Russia, then prostrate, by one means or another, into the general democratic system lies heavy upon us today.
- Winston Churchill
You reinforce the behaviors that you reward, he explained. If you reward candor, you’ll get it.
- Jack Welch
The bluegrass community… can be very strict. I didn’t know if I’d be welcomed into the bluegrass community or not, but I think they judge you very fairly… I felt really welcome.
- Steve Martin
If you focus on diversification instead of single-minded pursuit of the very few companies that can become overwhelmingly valuable, you’ll miss those rare companies in the first place.
- Peter Thiel
In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise, less than 10% of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down.
- Howard Schultz
I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.
- Joel Olsteen
Change is powerful, but change always comes with the possibility of failure as its partner. “This might not work” isn’t merely something to be tolerated; it’s something you must seek out.
- Seth Godin
The United States, and other advanced nations, will someday be able to produce instruments of death so terrible the world will be in abject terror of itself and its ability to end civilization…. Such war-making weapons should be developed – but only for purposes of discovery and experimentation.
- Thomas Edison
What’s your vision for the future of your follicles?
- Clay Clark
I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.
- Warren Buffett
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
- Winston Churchill
Disruptive technology should be framed as a marketing challenge, not a technological one.
- Clayton M. Christensen
I was an All-American in wrestling in high school, was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes, which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.
- Timothy Ferriss
Newspaper readership is still growing in India.
- Bill Gates
If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.
- Dale Carnegie
A product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users too.
- Peter Thiel
If you truly love what you are doing, why stop?
- Barry Schwartz
Become genuinely interested in other people.
- Dale Carnegie
The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.
- Peter Drucker
I am pleased with the strides we’ve made in our global equipment business where revenues grew 41 percent this past quarter and 37 percent year-to-date, … The strong dollar continues to negatively impact our European results constant dollar revenues in Europe were up 23 percent in the second quarter.
- Phil Knight
Leadership isn’t something that people hand to you. … [i]t’s a gradual process, one where you take responsibility years before you are given authority. And that’s something we can teach.
- Seth Godin
The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more things you’ll have to express gratitude for.
- Zig Ziglar
Let’s realise that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s realise that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself o herself, and condemn us in return.
- Dale Carnegie
I think that more flow of information, the ability to stay connected to more people makes people more effective as people. And I mean, that’s true socially. It makes you have more fun, right. It feels better to be more connected to all these people. You have a richer life.
- Mark Zuckerberg
For now, if the Hong Kong environment doesn’t change, then in the long term, investing in Hong Kong is best.
- Lee Shau Kee
In order for the United States to do the right things for the long term, it appears to be helpful for us to have the prospect of humiliation. Sputnik helped us fund good science – really good science: the semiconductor came out of it.
- Bill Gates
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
- Dale Carnegie
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, “Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.
- P.T. Barnum
Nothing in life has happened to you. It’s happened for you. Every disappointment. Every wrong. Even every closed door has helped make you into who you are.
- Joel Olsteen
In the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.
- Donald Trump
An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, “If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea.” Churchill’s response, “Ma’am if you were my wife I would drink it.
- Winston Churchill
Intemperance.
- Napoleon Hill
Money without brains is always dangerous.
- Napoleon Hill
People need to buy homes.
- Cheng Yu-tung
We know that if you just were to take the drugs that you were supposed to take for diabetes or hypertension, just take it, as opposed to not take it, we could save $7,000, $3,000 per patient per year.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
We are not 100 percent there, but we are finding consensus.
- Jon Fredrik Baksaas
If this market transition truly evolves the way that I think it’s most likely to, the worst decision you could make is not to move.
- John Chambers
Whether it’s eight o’clock in the morning or eight o’clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.
- Zig Ziglar
When I hire someone, I try to get beneath the surface and go deep. The first question I ask is, Has this person demonstrated any leadership potential? I ask for specifics and probe carefully to find out exactly what that person contributed. After all, success has many fathers.’ I also look for enthusiasm, people who lean forward in their chairs, who get up on their haunches a little but when they talk about what they’ve done. I like to see the passion and the excitement because that’s what will allow someone to inspire others. The next thing I look for is an avid learners, someone who is curious, who has an ability to make connections, to pick up on trends, and to apply what’s going on in the rest of the world to his or her business career. You obviously need smart people with a proven track record, but the real stars are passionate about what they do and are avid learners. Those two things make people continually raise the bar on performance.
- David Novak
This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put!
- Winston Churchill
Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?”
- Ben Horowitz
The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.
- Jeff Bezos
The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?
- John D. Rockefeller
No one knows more about the way you think than you do.
- Seth Godin
Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.
- Henry Ford
Surround yourself only with those that uplift you.
- Oprah Winfrey
You will have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
You can’t define what’s middle class, what is wealthy, what is poor.
- Michael Bloomberg
A man must choose his own way of life, and…it is only by following out one’s own bent that there can be the really harmonious life.
- Winston Churchill
The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.
- Winston Churchill
There is only one excuse for a speaker’s asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.
- Dale Carnegie
Bill Gates wants people to think he’s Edison, when he’s really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn’t right… wealth isn’t the same thing as intelligence.
- Larry Ellison
I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation, and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried.
- Herb Kelleher
Be ready for problems–you’ll have them every day. Keep open to new ideas–that’s where innovation begins.
- Donald Trump
As the Readers’s Digest once said: ‘Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.
- Dale Carnegie
I mean, you know, we don’t live in a perfect world.
- Michael Bloomberg
Within the first year of launching my company, Spanx, I decided to go over to England and cold-call Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges the same way I had cold-called Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale’s here in the United States.
- Sara Blakely
On my grandfather’s tombstone, you will find his favorite Marx quote: “Life is struggle.” I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.
- Ben Horowitz
Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine, which we and the rest of the civilized world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing, cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. It must be in continual motion, grinding up human lives and trampling down the homes and the rights of hundreds of millions of men. Moreover it must be fed, not only with flesh but with oil.
- Winston Churchill
I’m optimistic about the country. I’m optimistic about the American people.
- Howard Schultz
Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually.
- George Soros
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
- Benjamin Franklin
I had a terrible time hiring rich people. It sounds funny, but the problem is when things go wrong they can ask, ‘Why am I doing this?’ You don’t ever want anybody asking that question. You want them to say, ‘I know why I’m doing it, I need the money, let’s go’ or whatever it is that draws them.
- Ben Horowitz
Abe Lincoln once remarked that most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Dale Carnegie
10,000 years of fitful advance from primitive agriculture to medieval windmills and 16th-century astrolabes, the modern world suddenly experienced relentless technological progress from the advent of the steam engine in the 1760s all the way up to about 1970.
- Peter Thiel
What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming president?
- Michael Bloomberg
Change means opportunity for those with the experience and confidence to look to the future.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I think alot about money when I do not have it.
- Stacy Thorn
I love great music and art, but I think ‘cubist’ songs and paintings are hideous.
- Thomas Edison
Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.
- Joel Olsteen
We have an average household net worth of $3.7 million. Of course, some of our cohorts have accumulated much more. Nearly 6 percent have a net worth of over $10 million. Again, these people skew our average upward. The typical (median, or 50th percentile) millionaire household has a net worth of $1.6 million.
- Thomas J Stanley
The final relationship that cannot be ignored is with disrupters: They are individuals who cause trouble for sport – inciting opposition to management for a variety of reasons, most of them petty. Usually these people have good performance – that’s their cover – and so they are endured or appeased. A company that manages people well takes disrupters head-on. First they give them very tough evaluations, naming their bad behaviour and demanding it change. Usually it won’t. Disrupters are a personality type. If that’s the case, get them out of the way of people trying to do their jobs. They’re poison.
- Jack Welch
A leader is a dealer in hope.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.
- Sam Walton