Notable Quotables

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

- Seth Godin

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.

- Steve Jobs

During the past financial year, development properties sold by the Group amounted to approximately HK$3,592 million in total attributable sales proceeds, representing around 1,700 units…

- Lee Shau Kee

Do it now! can affect every phase of your life. It can help you do the things you should do but don’t feel like doing. It can keep you from procrastinating when an unpleasant duty faces you. But it can also help you do those things that you want to do. It helps you seize those precious moments that, if lost, may never be retrieved.

- Napoleon Hill

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.

- John C. Maxwell

I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

- Steve Jobs

We are pleased to look back at another extremely successful financial year 2014 during which we achieved our targets.

- Elmar Degenhart

The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.

- Bill Gates

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

- Bishop Desmond TuTu

What’s your vision for the future of your follicles?

- Clay Clark

I’m optimistic about the country. I’m optimistic about the American people.

- Howard Schultz

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

- Peter Drucker

It doesn’t matter how many people you offend, as long as you’re getting your message to your consumers. I say to those people who do not want to offend anybody: You are going to have a very, very difficult time having meaningful advertising.

- Phil Knight

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

- John C. Maxwell

Being productive gives people a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that loafing never can.

- Zig Ziglar

The reason the social-networking phenomenon is something that I invested in early and massively – I led the Series A financing for Friendster; I founded a company called Socialnet in 1997; I founded LinkedIn; and I was part of the first round of financing in Facebook – it sounds trivial, but people matter.

- Reid Hoffman

Helping convene global stakeholders to establish a set of measurable, actionable and consensus-built goals focused on extreme poverty is invaluable.

- Bill Gates

Here’s to the crazy ones…The ones who see things differently. They push thehuman race forward. And while some may see them as thecrazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

- Steve Jobs

I’ve always been interested in science – one of my favourite books is James Watson’s ‘Molecular Biology of the Gene.

- Bill Gates

A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.

- Arnold Glasow

The most fundamental reason that even businesspeople underestimate the importance of sales is the systematic effort to hide it at every level of every field in a world secretly driven by it.

- Peter Thiel

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

- Henry Ford

In this early period, Rockefeller was a chronic worrier who labored under a great deal of self-imposed stress. Though not versed in the scientific side of refining, he often excercised a direct managerial role in the plant. With fluctuating market conditions, he sometimes needed shipments to New York with great dispatch and personally rushed down to the railroad tracks to motivate the freight handlers. I shall never forget how hungry I was in those days. I stayed out of doors day and night; I ran up and down the tops of freight cars, when necessary; I hurried up the boys.

- Ron Chernow

Gratitude is the single greatest treasure I will take with me from this experience.

- Oprah Winfrey

I’m a constant learner. You need to be a constant student because things change and you have to change and grow. And I emphasize the word ‘grow.’

- Zig Ziglar

Catering to a mass audience usually backfires. Instead the key thing is to stay in your lane, and if you are good enough and interesting enough, people move to you…If you never compromise, your core audience will come with you as you grow. Then you build on their loyalty and bring in other people.

- Russell Simmons

Difference between TV and the internet was how far you sat from the screen. TV was an 8 foot activity, and you were a consumer. The internet was a 16 inch activity, and you participated. I think the sitting down thing is similar. You’re not going to buy an armoir while standing on the subway.

- Seth Godin

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!

- Og Mandino

Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether.

- Timothy Ferriss

My blogging life is basically goalless. I like the zen nature of that, and paradoxically, it improves results.

- Seth Godin

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

The recovering economic environment will lead to an increase in local demand for home purchases and the purchasing power which has accumulated in the past two years due to uncertainty surrounding the local economy will result in increased demand for residential properties, particularly for residential units of small to medium size which match well with your [Henderson] Group’s property development focus.

- Lee Shau Kee

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

- Henry Ford

Bitcoin is mostly about anonymous transactions, and I don’t think over time that’s a good way to go. I’m a huge believe in digital currency… but doing it on an anonymous basis I think that leads to some abuses, so I’m not involved in Bitcoin.”-Bill Gates, Entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft

- Bill Gates

I just believe that the way that young people’s minds develop is fascinating. If you are doing something for a grade or salary or a reward, it doesn’t have as much meaning as creating something for yourself and your own life.

- Steve Wozniak

The single reason for a salesperson’s existence is to get the Buyer’s commitment. Just how poor are salespeople at their jobs? In a study of professional sales people (those who sell full time), 50% failed to ask for the buyer’s commitment to buy.

- Jerry Vass

I worry about losing a real talent. I hate losing a great leader more than anything. I also hate it when I have to manager out a good person for poor performance or for simply doing something that is not in sync with our values. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life and I’ve had to do it more than once, is fire a friend.

- David Novak

Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.

- Timothy Ferriss

Hong Kong has, throughout it’s history, experienced periods of uncertainties… I believe that the virtues of Hong Kong people – diligent, flexible and entrepreneurial – will once again overcome the obstacles before us.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to ‘gamble’ on an unknown.

- Zig Ziglar

I know when one door closes God will open up another door. What was meant for my harm God will use to my advantage. I’m not only coming out, I will come out better off than I was before.

- Joel Olsteen

Pessimism doesn’t grow your business or even maintain the status quo. The pessimists on your staff make the job harder for everyone around them. They make difficulties out of opportunities.

- Harvey Mackay

I remember thinking quite logically that I didn’t want to spoil my children with wealth and so that I would create a foundation, but not knowing exactly what it would focus on.

- Bill Gates

We found that for leaders to make something great, their ambition has to be for the greatness of the work and the company, rather than for themselves.

- James C. Collins

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.

- Harry Truman

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

- Walt Disney

Adversity can strengthen you if you have the will to grind it out.

- Ray Kroc

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

- Winston Churchill

Don’t live worried, frustrated or upset because of what somebody did or what didn’t work out. Come back to a place of peace. It’s not going to work against you; it’s going to work for you.

- Joel Olsteen

When Sam feels a certain way, he is relentless. He will just wear you out. He will bring up an idea, and we’ll discuss it and then decide maybe that it’s not something we should be doing right now or ever. Fine. Case closed. But as long as he is convinced that it is the right thing, it just keep coming up week after week – until finally everybody capitulates and says, well it’s easier to do it than to keep fighting this fight. I guess it could be called management by wearing you down.

- David Glass

You are safer here tonight than you would be on the streets of any other city in the world.

- Michael Bloomberg

Esta es la clave: las únicas promesas que se avivarán en su vida y terminarán convirtiéndose en realidad son las promesas en las que usted se levanta y dice: Sí, eso es para mí”. Tiene que entrar en acuerdo con Dios y permitir que eso eche raíz.

- Joel Olsteen

If you look at coffee, tea, food and juice, we think there are inherent opportunities. If you look at health bars or grab-and-go products that are in our stores, we think we can significantly enhance them and make them more widely available.

- Howard Schultz

Obviously I knew it was a great opportunity but I wasn’t expecting something as big as right now, what we see in Macau.

- Lui Che Woo

The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest, their holding too much money. We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody’s afraid of the government and there’s no need soft peddling it, it’s the truth. It is the truth.

- Stephen Wynn

A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt, long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

- Winston Churchill

Failure to deliver on committments is, in the end, unacceptable.

- Jack Welch

You learn in this business: It you want a friend, get a dog.

- Carl Icahn

We can schedule for it. Thursday, April 3rd, 3:05…start something. We can train for it, plan for it, announce it, and even hire for it. If initiating is as essential to the modern organization as it appears, we better be doing all of that and more.

- Seth Godin

The wealthy class often looks down on the poor as those people. And deprived people view the rich as cold and heartless. The way to break down the barrier between the rich and poor is to asociate with each other and to help one another. Make a connection. If you can break down the barrier, it may pave the way to recovery for some person, a family, maybe an entire community.

- George Foreman

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

- Winston Churchill

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

- Bill Gates

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.

- Zig Ziglar

You cannot expect to live a positive life if you hang with negative people.

- Joel Olsteen

Self-driving cars are the natural extension of active safety and obviously something we should do.

- Elon Musk

Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary cofounder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.

- Ben Horowitz

Unhappy Barnes & Noble filed a lawsuit three days before Amazon’s IPO, claiming that Amazon was unfairly calling itself a “bookstore” when really it was a “book broker”.

- Peter Thiel

You watch television and see what’s going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing’s going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress.

- Stephen Wynn

Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time.

- Warren Buffett

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

- Winston Churchill

As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don’t teach people how to create companies. At my companies, our position is that we hire someone in spite of an MBA, not because of one.

- Elon Musk

Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.

- Dale Carnegie

People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

- Peter Drucker

As I get, I give. Giving as you get is critical. It has everything to do with being happy for yourself, and making others happy is the cause of making yourself happy, and it’s the cycle of giving and getting.

- Russell Simmons

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

- Bill Gates

Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won’t help you find the global maximum.

- Peter Thiel

We have more than six and one-half times the level of wealth of our non-millionaire neighbors, but, in our neighborhood, these non-millionaires outnumber us better than three to one. Could it be that they have chosen to trade wealth for acquiring high-status material possessions?

- The Millionaire Next Door

I’ve come too far to stop now. I may be knocked down, but I’m not knocked out. I’m going to get back up again. I know I’m a victor, not a victim.

- Joel Olsteen

You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.

- Oprah Winfrey

It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

- Winston Churchill

Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson.

- Winston Churchill

The battle is all over except the ‘shouting’ when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be.

- Napoleon Hill

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.

- Napoleon Hill

It’s the poorer people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change – as well as some ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.

- Bill Gates

I think that any wealth creates a sense of trusteeship… it is characteristic of the new generation which has created wealth to have some amount of responsibility for it.

- Azim Premji

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.

- Vince Lombardi

The laws of business physics have been broken in terms of how many customers you can acquire and how fast. No one in history has ever acquired 450 million customers in the same amount of time that WhatsApp did

- Ben Horowitz

Sometimes what works 40 years ago doesn’t work today.

- Joel Olsteen

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