When companies fail, or fail to grow, it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need.
- Howard Schultz
Notable Quotables
Service is the key to everything in life.
- Russell Simmons
We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.
- Winston Churchill
This paper, by its very length, defends itself from ever being read.
- Winston Churchill
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking all day from one laboratory table to another. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf.
- Thomas Edison
It’s very beautiful over there.
- Thomas Edison
The boss would be present at the beginning of each session, laying out the rationale for the Work-Out. He or she would also commit to two things: to give an on-the-spot yes or no to 75 percent of the recommendations that came out of the session, and to resolve the remaining 25 percent within thirty days. The boss would then disappear until the end of the session, so as not to stifle open discussion, returning only at the end to make good on his or her promise.
- Jack Welch
I’m a professional geologist, an explorationist for oil. That’s what I’ve done in my career, one that’s culminated in – at least to this point – playing a part in finding the largest field in the last 40 years anywhere in the world. That’s the Bakken field, which I believe will yield 24 billion barrels of oil in the decades to come, maybe more.
- Harold Hamm
One of the things it was obvious you could do with an online store is have a much more complete selection.
- Jeff Bezos
Know when to stop.
- Jack Dorsey
Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.
- John C. Maxwell
tends to rivet our attention on the Icarus companies.
- James C. Collins
I have been very fortunate to be successful in business, and I believe that it is right that people who have this type of wealth should give something back into society.
- Alisher Usmanov
I very much believe the Internet is indeed all it is cracked up to be.
- Jeff Bezos
I was uncomfortable with the timing, … We were getting millions less from the federal government for Medicaid and having to search for funds to restore some of those cuts and I just did not think it was right to put a pay raise on the board that would cost tens of millions of dollars.
- Michael Gerber
Team Together / Team Apart means you respect the final decision even if you would do something diffently, and make it happen with positive energy.
- David Novak
Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.
- Joel Olsteen
You embrace the top 20, deal with the middle 70, and you face into the bottom 10, and you do what’s right for them and for you.
- Jack Welch
There is nothing either good or bad.
- William Shakespeare
Be reactionary. React to what the market wants. And the market wants one-on-one real time engagement. Now that we have the tools to engage, I’m going to continue fighting for the end user.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Solving big problems is easier than solving little problems.
- Sergey Brin
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it.
- Ben Horowitz
We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.
- Winston Churchill
Americans mythologize competition and credit it with saving us from socialist bread lines. Actually, capitalism and competition are opposites. Capitalism is premised on the accumulation of capital, but under perfect competition all profits get competed away.
- Peter Thiel
If your temper is aroused and you tell ’em a thing or two, you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other fellow? Will he share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, your hostile attitude, make it easy for him to agree with you? If you come at me with your fists doubled, said Wood row Wilson, I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and say, ‘Let us sit down and take counsel together, and, if we differ from one another, understand why it is that we differ from one another, just what the points at issue are,’ we will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get together, we will get together.
- Dale Carnegie
In tennis, you strike a ball just after the rebound for the fastest return. It’s the same with investment.
- Masayoshi Son
If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not.
- Elon Musk
Nothing I do is done by popular demand.
- Steve Martin
There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. ‘Good pride’ represents our dignity and self-respect. ‘Bad pride’ is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance.
- John C. Maxwell
To succeed in business, you must build a brand and never destroy it.
- Aliko Dangote
If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth
- Ray Kroc
Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
- Albert Einstein
I usually have my yellow legal pad with me, with a list of ten or fifteen things we need to be working on as a company. My list drives the executives around here crazy, but it’s probably one of my more important contributions.
- Sam Walton
The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.
- Mark Zuckerberg
What a great thrill it will be for fans of all generations to see these NASCAR superheroes together again at Atlanta Motor Speedway. With 405 victories between them, each and every one played an integral role in making NASCAR the tremendous success it is today.
- Ed Clark
Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty. Loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers. Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees.
- Putting the Service-Profit Chain To Work - Ja
You spend so much time in the world of virtual that the actual – which nothing is more actual than stand-up – it’s a painful experience for the audience, and the comedian a lot of time – we miss that.
- Jerry Seinfeld
It is very helpful to me, in my job, for people to know me better. A lot of that is, it’s a communication job.
- Ben Horowitz
The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time it’s learned.
- John C. Maxwell
The most interesting biofuel efforts avoid using land that’s expensive and has high opportunity costs. They do this by getting onto other types of land, or taking advantage of byproducts that aren’t used in the food chain today, or by intercropping.
- Bill Gates
When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.
- Josh James
People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.
- Joel Olsteen
I enjoy myself a lot but I derive my joy from working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secret is hard work.
- Aliko Dangote
Hedgehog Concept—disciplined action, following from disciplined people who exercise disciplined thought.
- James C. Collins
The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny.The lizard brain only wants to eat and be safe.The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it has to, but would rather run away. It likes a vendetta and has no trouble getting angry.The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe is essential to its survival.A squirrel runs around looking for nuts, hiding from foxes, listening for predators, and watching for other squirrels. The squirrel does this because that’s all it can do. All the squirrel has is a lizard brain.The only correct answer to ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ is ‘Because it’s lizard brain told it to.’ Wild animals are wild because the only brain they posses is a lizard brain.The lizard brain is not merely a concept. It’s real, and it’s living on the top of your spine, fighting for your survival. But, of course, survival and success are not the same thing.The lizard brain is the reason you’re afraid, the reason you don’t do all the art you can, the reason you don’t ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of the resistance.
- Seth Godin
There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
- Henry Ford
Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable
- Peter Thiel
Continually get the word out about how you’re handling the situation.
- David Novak
have a place where everyone matters
- Lee Cockerell
I’m afraid Japanese people tend to collective hysteria.
- Tadashi Yanai
Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.
- Warren Buffett
Lanai at one time grew 98% of the world’s pineapples. But the world’s pineapples are now grown in two places, Costa Rica and Panama, because no one wants to spend $45 for a pineapple from the United States.
- Larry Ellison
Tip #17 – Perceived value is what sells. Real value is what repeats.
- Jack Nadel
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
Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.
- Timothy Ferriss
Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.
- Napoleon Hill
Every great business is built on friendship.
- JC Penney
What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming president?
- Michael Bloomberg
The more you complain about your problems, the more problems you will have to complain about.
- Zig Ziglar
Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment.
- Ben Horowitz
I am a man of simple tastes easily satisfied with the best.
- Winston Churchill
Life is not a dress rehearsal.
- Clay Clark
They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.
- Thomas Edison
We have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good – always do the right, ethical thing. Ultimately, ‘Don’t be evil’ seems the easiest way to summarize it.
- Sergey Brin
I couldn’t figure out what to wear under my clothes. The body shapers were too thick at the time.
- Sara Blakely
Motivation is the fuel, necessary to keep the human engine running.
- Zig Ziglar
our skills and talent, but above all, be tenacious. See yourself as victorious–which means never giving up
- Donald Trump
If you use your money to create exceptional products and services, you won’t need to spend it on advertising.
- Seth Godin
There is no shame in taking pride in achievements or position. But nobody gets to the top alone.
- Harvey Mackay
I’ve traveled around the world, and what’s so revealing is that, despite the differences in culture, politics, language, how people dress, there is a universal feeling that we all want the same thing. We deeply want to be respected and appreciated for our differences.
- Howard Schultz
Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them.
- John C. Maxwell
I produced Run DMC. I produced some early records, lots of records early on.
- Russell Simmons
I don’t think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you’re willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn’t work. If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long term.
- Jeff Bezos
The first ten minutes of sorting through clothing was like choosing which child of mine should live or die.
- Timothy Ferriss
When you live your life in different ways, it makes people around you become uncomfortable. So deal with it. They don’t know what you are going to do.
- Larry Ellison
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.
- Oprah Winfrey
Don’t let any opportunity lead you away from serving God. That’s a price that’s too high to pay.
- George Foreman
California, in a sense, is almost Starbucks’ largest country, with almost 3,000 stores
- Howard Schultz
We must restore the emotional relationship that people have to the idea of America, that no matter where you come from, no matter where you live, that you have access to the same opportunities that somebody who is born in privilege.
- Howard Schultz
No man has a right to expect to succeed in life unless he understands his business, and nobody can understand his business thoroughly unless he learns it by personal application and experience.
- P.T. Barnum
Anatomy of a MovementSenator Bill Bradley defines a movement as having three elements: (1) A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we’re trying to build. (2) A connection between and among the leader and the tribe. (3) Something to do – the fewer limits the better. Too often organizations fail to do anything but the third.
- Seth Godin
Said another way, the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important—the way it’s delivered is. When The Entrepreneur creates the model.
- Michael Gerber
The financial world has long been missing immediacy, transparency, and approachability and this is what’s needed now.
- Jack Dorsey
When times are bad is when you want to build! Why wait for things to pick up so everything will cost more?
- Ray Kroc
The world has changed – through technology, through wine-making techniques, the quality of wine is greater than it’s ever been. Whereas ten, fifteen years ago it was very easy to find lots of bad wine, it’s kind of hard now. The technology, the science – it’s like, are you kidding? We’re in the golden years of wine!
- Gary Vaynerchuk
When you have one million dollars, you’re a lucky person. When you have 10 million dollars, you’ve got trouble, a lot of headaches. When you have more than one billion dollars, or a hundred million dollars, that’s a responsibility you have – it’s the trust of people on you, because people believe you can spend money better than the others.
- Jack Ma
The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.
- Yoda
When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.
- Bill Gates
Every noteworthy achievement met with some sort of temporary setback before success came.
- Napoleon Hill
if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.
- Dale Carnegie
Employee loyalty begins with employer loyalty. Your employees should know that if they do the job they were hired to do with a reasonable amount of competence and efficiency, you will support them.
- Harvey Mackay
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: —There spread a cloud of dust along a plainAnd underneath the cloud, or in it, ragedA furious battle, and men yelled, and swordsShocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s bannerWavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.A craven hung along the battle’s edge,And thought, Had I a sword of keener steel —That blue blade that the king’s son bears, — but thisBlunt thing! — he snapt and flung it from his hand,And lowering crept away and left the field.Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shoutLifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,And saved a great cause that heroic day.
- Edward Rowland Sill
The better at communicating you are, and the more people you communicate to, the better your cash flow will be.
- Robert Kiyosaki
It isn’t enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to acting outside the box.
- Timothy Ferriss
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’
- Henry Ford
You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
- Thomas J Watson
You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
- John C. Maxwell
The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.
- Seth Godin
