Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.
- Elon Musk
Notable Quotables
The special prosecutor basically supported what we had told the Board of Elections all along.
- Michael Ward
If you can’t fail, it doesn’t count.
- Seth Godin
Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.
- Yoda
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Effectiveness must be learned.
- Peter Drucker
Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
- Peter Drucker
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
As you heat the planet up, it’s just like boiling a pot.
- Elon Musk
I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalitites, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.
- Tony Hsieh
I ask every participant to think about who their personal business mentors have been and why. I tell them my own business hero was Andy Pearson and I give them a few Andy stories to illustrate why. Then we break into groups of about twenty to go around in a circle and have each person talk about the person who has mean the most to him…We reconvene in the larger group and discuss some of the traits that were exhibited by the mentors; integrity, passion, inspiration, a positive outlook, and so on. A lot of people said it was someone who, helped me realize what I could achieve or really cared about me as a person. Then I try to get them to go a little deeper. I say, Now suppose that you were a fly on the wall, looking down on this room ten years from now. What would you like people to be saying about you? How would you feel if someone were saying that you were the person who had the greatest impact on his or her professional life?
- David Novak
Remember you’re not entitled to anything. You have to earn your success every day, and you will make mistakes like everyone else.
- Harvey Mackay
MONOPOLY. Tesla started with a tiny submarket that it could dominate: the market for high-end electric sports cars. Since the first Roadster rolled off the production line in 2008, Tesla’s sold only about 3,000 of them, but at $109,000 apiece that’s not trivial. Starting small allowed Tesla to undertake the necessary R&D to build the slightly less expensive Model S, and now Tesla owns the luxury electric sedan market, too. They sold more than 20,000 sedans in 2013 and now Tesla is in prime position to expand to broader markets in the future.
- Peter Thiel
Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship…the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.
- Peter Drucker
Everybody was writing about computers and electronics, but all I really knew about was running. It’s what I’ve chosen to do with my life.
- Phil Knight
I really like reading books
- Dale Carnegie
It’s easy to dream about it … Much harder to execute it ….Work!
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Most kids cannot ask questions. They can memorize, but they cannot learn.
- Terry Fischer
To a contrarian like me, constant advice not to do something almost always starts me quickly down the risky, unpopular path.
- Michael Bloomberg
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
One can steal ideas, but no one can steal execution or passion.
- Timothy Ferriss
What most people want in a leader is something that’s very difficult to find: we want someone who listens…The secret, Reagan’s secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you hear what they said – they’re less focused on whether or not you do what they said.
- Seth Godin
I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.
- Walt Disney
I hate how many people think “glass half-empty” when their glass is really four-fifths full. I’m grateful when I have one drop in the glass because I know exactly what to do with it.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
What you get by reaching your destination is not nearly as important as what you will become by reaching your destination.
- Zig Ziglar
My supply of Scotch caution never has been small; but I was apparently something of a daredevil now and then to the manufacturing fathers of Pittsburgh. They were old and I was young, which made all the difference.
- Andrew Carnegie
Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.
- Herb Kelleher
You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.
- Zig Ziglar
Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked
- Warren Buffett
Are you green and growing or ripe and rotting?
- Ray Kroc
Much about success is just the result of simply the ability to follow up, follow through, and finish what we started.
- Zig Ziglar
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
You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.
- Steve Martin
All money means to me is a pride in accomplishment.
- Ray Kroc
It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.
- Jerry Seinfeld
You cannot get into business for the fashion of it.
- Azim Premji
Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. The management team.
- James C. Collins
I’ve always been at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize.
- Jeff Bezos
If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.
- Elon Musk
My first professional job was to sell heavy-duty waterless cookware.
- Zig Ziglar
A company is like a shark, it either has to move forward or it dies.
- Larry Ellison
Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? Even if you don’t consciously agree with that statement, your brain sure does.
- Seth Godin
If I prophesy my future I want to prophesy something good. I’m not saying what I feel. I’m not saying what it looks like in the real world. No, I’m saying what God says about me.
- Joel Olsteen
Some people are gift givers by nature. They love their tribe, or they respect their art, and so they give. Not for an ulterior motive, but because it gives them joy.
- Seth Godin
Our company has to be a company that enables its people.
- Steve Ballmer
Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best.
- Peter Thiel
Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.
- Joel Olsteen
You’ve got to visualize where you’re headed and be very clear about it. Take a polaroid picture of where you’re going to be in a few years
- Sara Blakely
For me, the most fun is change or growth. There are definitely elements of both that I like. Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn boat.
- Tony Hsieh
Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned. Save you it can.
- Yoda
As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.
- Ray Kroc
Best wine if you’re stranded on a deserted island? 1982 Salon Champagne.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I don’t think we’re going to run out of important things to do, compared with the resources that we have. There are many, many problems in the world that need solving.
- Larry Page
How do leaders serve their people? They may pay good wages and treat employees with respect.
- John C. Maxwell
The successful business executive can handle challenges and solve problems at a remarkable clip.
- Zig Ziglar
The essential first step is to think for yourself. Only by seeing our world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future.
- Peter Thiel
If people look inward, they would see the opportunities for greatness.
- Aliko Dangote
Unless you have perfectly conventional beliefs, it’s rarely a good idea to tell everybody everything that you know. So who do you tell? Whoever you need to, and no more. In practice, there’s always a golden mean between telling nobody and telling everybody—and that’s a company. The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside.
- Peter Thiel
I’ve become an animal rights activist.
- Stephen Wynn
TV is a great big megaphone,” and when you can only afford to spend dozens of dollars acquiring a new customer, you need the biggest megaphone you can find.
- Peter Thiel
Self-control – the man who cannot control himself can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate.
- Napoleon Hill
There’s an old saying: To lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart. That’s the nature of the Law of Connection. Always touch a person’s heart before you ask for a hand.
- Michael Levine
In the short term, the market is a popularity contest. In the long term, the market is a weighing machine.
- Warren Buffett
If anyone thinks they’d rather be in a different part of history, they’re probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You’d probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.
- Elon Musk
I’ve actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.
- Elon Musk
If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.
- John C. Maxwell
The computer is a moron.
- Peter Drucker
You know, the diversity that America has is so special. It’s starting to really become a cool thing for young people.
- Russell Simmons
We only get to play this game one time…one life.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
In time, we lose our freshness and spontaneity of true conversation. These are areas in which everyone interested in self-improvement will seek to improve.
- Dale Carnegie
I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.
- Elon Musk
Over-Caution.
- Napoleon Hill
Hard things are hard because there are no easy answers or recipes. They are hard because your emotions are at odds with your logic. They are hard because you don’t know the answer and you cannot ask for help without showing weakness.
- Ben Horowitz
Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
- Dale Carnegie
There’s never been a doctor who served many patients who, despite their best efforts, did not lose some of them to death. But they understood that was part of life itself.
- Zig Ziglar
I think the acquisition of consumers might be on the verge of being mapped. The battlefield is going to be retention and lifetime value.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
People need to buy homes.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
- Peter Drucker
In reality it is the focus on the first three D’s that ultimately gains you the data, and the dollars you need to become very, very rich…in other words the dollars are derived from having a dream, being dedicated, and having the drive to win.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Direct your energy toward achieving a goal, and tackle the problems with an emphasis on edging closer to a successful result.
- Harvey Mackay
We’ve been trained to prefer being right to learning something, to prefer passing the test to making a difference, and most of all, to prefer fitting in with the right people, the people with economic power. Now it’s your turn to stand up and stand out.
- Seth Godin
Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.
- Richard Branson
The fallout from the US sub-prime issue, turbulence on global financial markets and the resulting credit tightening, slow-down in the global economies and increasing inflationary pressure all threaten to pose a drag on the economic growth in Hong Kong.
- Lee Shau Kee
We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.
- Dale Carnegie
I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.
- Elon Musk
I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill.
- Bill Gates
The values of life are most important.
- Leonardo Del Vecchio
Although DJ Clay may never sleep, all of his dreams come true!
- Blake Fraley
If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.
- Ray Kroc
Allow yourself to get on the same side of the desk and solve the problems together.
- Jack Nadel
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.
- Colin Powell
Laughter is America’s most important export.
- Walt Disney
Eventually you won’t think of ‘the Internet business.’ You’ll think of it more like news, weather, sports, but even that taxonomy isn’t clear.
- Bill Gates
When you live for others’ opinions, you are dead. I don’t want to live thinking about how I’ll be remembered.
- Carlos Slim Helu
China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.
- Bill Gates
Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.
- Timothy Ferriss
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines, the one who actually talk to the customer, are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble within it, you must listen to what your associates are telling you.
- Sam Walton
During this time I learned the most important rule of raising money privately: Look for a market of one. You only need one investor to say yes, so it’s best to ignore the other thirty who say “no.”
- Ben Horowitz
I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.
- Jeff Bezos
I heard about this man who fell into a pit, and while he was down there several people came by and offered their opinions. The Pharisee said, You deserve to be in the pit.” The Catholic said, You need to suffer while you’re in the pit.” The Baptist said, If you’d been saved, you wouldn’t have fallen into the pit.” The charismatic said, Just confess I’m not in the pit.” The mathematician said, Let me calculate how you fell into the pit.” The IRS agent said, Have you paid taxes on that pit?” The optimist said, Things could be worse.” The pessimist said, Things will get worse.
- Joel Olsteen
