Consider scheduling a daily meeting with your new executive. Require them to bring a comprehensive set of questions about everything they heard that day but did not completely understand.
- Ben Horowitz
Notable Quotables
For many of us, the happiest future is one that’s precisely like the past, except a little better.
- Seth Godin
Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill
A lovely nook of forest scenery, or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of its attractiveness upon the attendance sense of freedom from whatever is low; upon a sense of purity and of romance.
- P.T. Barnum
They have destroyed your weapons,but these weapons would in any case have become obsolete before the next war. That war will be fought with brand-new ones, and the army which is least hampered with obsolete material will have a great advantage.
- Winston Churchill
Some people are averse to change, but the advertising model is going to change with or without the Hopper. What we’re saying to the broadcasters is, ‘There’s a way for you not to put your head in the sand.’
- Charles Ergen
Intemperance.
- Napoleon Hill
General and undifferentiated pitches don’t say anything about why a recruit should join your company instead of many others.
- Peter Thiel
One who starts a business without written plans of any kind, without a pro-forma or any concept of their overall profitability per customer, yet believes that if they work hard enough and give enough money away to those in need that eventually they will not be in need.
- Clay Clark
A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company’s most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think.
- Peter Thiel
The Chinese market is a very good expansion opportunity for us, and we will continue looking to buy stakes and make acquisitions.
- Dhanin Chearavanont
Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.
- Dale Carnegie
The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business. Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country’s future. We are becoming a high-cost and high-risk nation for investment.
- Gina Rinehart
I think we are living in a time where the consumer has lots of choices, whether it’s coffee, newspapers or whatever it is. And there is parity in the market place, and as a result of that, the consumer is beginning to make decisions, not just on what things cost and the convenience of it.
- Howard Schultz
There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.
- Zig Ziglar
Be happy with who God made you to be, and quit wishing you were something different.
- Joel Olsteen
Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?” Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course… “Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”Socialite: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!” Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price
- Winston Churchill
The ‘Billionaire’ song is what my kids tease me with. They sing it to me. It’s funny.
- Bill Gates
Mike suggested that we might want to turn our stockholders’ meetings into an event, and we went along with him.
- Sam Walton
I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver.
- Sara Blakely
Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo’s sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey’s angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.
- John C. Maxwell
Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.
- Zig Ziglar
I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.
- Elon Musk
The story about GE that hasn’t been told is the value of an informal place. I think it’s a big thought. I don’t think people have ever figured out that being informal is a big deal.
- Jack Welch
I like a man who grins when he fights.
- Winston Churchill
Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.
- Henry Ford
I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being.
- Oprah Winfrey
To a child love is spelled T-I-M-E.
- Zig Ziglar
So to hype up PolyGram we placed fake orders for the record into their system by telling retailers and wholesalers to order the 12 inch through PolyGram. PolyGram didn’t own it yet, but we created an appetite for Christmas Rappin that led them to buy it…So in the fall of 1979 Kurtis Blow signed with Mercury Records a division of Polygram Records, making him the first rapper on a major label…Christmas eve 1979 was the first time that I heard Christmas Rappin’ on the radio; I was upstairs at my family’s house. Frankie Crocker the biggest radio DJ in New York played it on WBLS.
- Russell Simmons
All a bliss state like California does is spoil you.
- Phil Knight
Same problem as every Hollywood studio: how can you reliably produce a constant stream of popular entertainment for a fickle audience? (Nobody knows.)
- Peter Thiel
In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.
- Seth Godin
About one in five of us is retired. About two-thirds of us who are working are self-employed. Interestingly, self-employed peoplemake up less than 20 percent of the workers in America but account for two-thirds of the millionaires.
- Thomas J Stanley
The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.
- Peter Thiel
Every breakthrough business idea begins with solving a common problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. I discovered a big one when I took apart an IBM PC. I made two interesting discoveries: The components were all manufactured by other companies, and the system that retailed for $3,000 cost about $600 in parts.
- Michael Dell
We thought this [downturn] would last for two quarters, … Now we are saying that it will last for at least – at least ? three quarters.
- John Chambers
The customer reaction to Dell going private has been a lot more positive than I would have ever imagined. Customers see it as – ‘You don’t have to be distracted. Now you can totally focus on your business.’ So they see it as a positive.
- Michael Dell
Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
The constraint of 140 characters is easy to approach and consume, without a great deal of barriers to entry. One message and suddenly the whole world has access to that Tweet.
- Jack Dorsey
Be courageous! Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation…. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward!
- Thomas Edison
I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance…and if you have anxiety about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.
- Seth Godin
It’s tangible, it’s solid, it’s beautiful. It’s artistic, from my standpoint, and I just love real estate.
- Donald Trump
Despite incessant dissappointment, he doggedly pursued a position. Each morning, he left his boardinghouse at eight o’ clock, clothed in a dark suit with a high collar and black tie, to make his rounds of appointed firms. This grimly determined trek went on each day, six days per week for six consecutive weeks, until late in the afternoon. The streets were so hot and hard that he grew footsore from pacing them. His perseverance surely owed something to his desire to end his reliance upon his fickle father. At one point, Bill (his father) suggested that if John didn’t find work he might have to return to the country; the thought of such dependence upon his father made a cold chill run down his spine, Rockefeller later said. Because he approached his job hunt devoid of any doubt or self-pity, he could stare down discouragement. I was working every day at my business –the business of looking for work. I put in my full time at this everyday. He was a confirmed exponent of positive thinking. With almost thirty thousand inhabitants, Cleveland was a boom town that would have thrilled any young man avid for business experience. It had drawn many transplants from New England who had brought along the Puritan mores and Yankee trading culture of their old hometowns. While the streets were largely unpaved and the town lacked a sewage system, Cleveland was expanding rapidly, with immigrants pouring in from Germany and England as well as the Eastern seaboard. The plenty if the Midwest passed through the commercial crossroads of the Western Reserve: coal from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, iron ore from around Lake Superior, salt from Michigan, grain and corn from the plains states. As a port on Lake Erie and the Ohio Canal, Clevelend was a natural hub for transportation networks. When the Cleveland Colombus and Cincinatti Railroad arrived in 1951, it created excellent opportunities for transport by both water and rail, and nobody would more brilliantly exploit these options than John D. Rockefeller. For all the thriving waterfront commerce, the job prospects were momentarily bleak. No one wanted a boy, and very few showed any overwhelming anxiety to talk with me on the subject, said Rockefeller. When he exhausted his list he simply started over from the top and visited several firms two or three times. Another boy might have been crestfallen, but Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection.Then, on the morning of September 26th 1855, he walked into the offices of Hewitt & Tuttle, commission merchants and produce shippers on Mervin Street. He was interviewed by Henry B. Tuttle, the junior partner, who needed help with his books and asked him to return after lunch. Ecstatic, Rockefeller walked with restraint from the office, but when he got downstairs and rounded the corner he skipped down the street in pure joy. Even as an elderly man, he a saw the moment as endowed with high drama: All my future seemed to hinge on that day: and I often tremble when I ask myself the question: What if I had not got the job?In a fever of anxiety, Rockefeller awaited until the noonday meal was over, then returned to the office, where he was interviewed by senior partner Iasacc L. Newton. Owner of a good deal of Cleveland real estate and a mighty capitalist indeed. After scutinizing the boy’s penmanship, he clared we’ll give you a chance. They were evidently in urgent need of an assistant bookkeeper, since they told Rockefeller to hang up his coat and go straight to work without any mention of wages. In those days, it wasn’t unusual for an adolescent to serve an unpaid apprenticeship, and it was three months before John received his first humble retroactive pay. For the rest of his life he would honor September 26th as JOB DAY and celebrate it with more genuine brio than his birthday. One is tempted to say that his real life began on that day, that he was born again in business as he would be in the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church. All the latent dynamism that had been dormant during his country youth would now quicken into robust, startling life in the business world. He was finally liberated from Big Bill (his father), the endless flight from town to town, the whole crazy upside-down world of his boyhood.
- Ron Chernow
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.
- Sam Walton
We have built a company with a business mix and operating system that will allow us to deliver record results in any foreseeable economic climate, … We have just completed a very successful management transition and I’ve never been more confident about the company’s future.
- Jack Welch
If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Wal-Mart, I will regret it for the rest of my life.
- Jack Ma
Confidence in our own independence of mind. But advertising doesn’t exist to make you buy a product right away, it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later. Anyone who can’t acknowledge its likely effect on himself is doubly deceived.
- Peter Thiel
I think that diversity is key for the next American entrepreneurs. They want to be a part of this society where there is so much diversity they have to have people from all the experiences.
- Russell Simmons
Success is not final…Failure is not fatal…it’s the courage to continue that counts.
- Winston Churchill
I’ve got the greatest job in the world. There’s no other job in government where cause and effect is so tightly coupled where you can make a difference every day in so many different ways and in so many different people’s lives. It’s a great challenge.
- Michael Bloomberg
Globalization has made copper and other minerals more valuable, and Ghana and Kenya have recently discovered mineral resources.
- Bill Gates
I believe God wants you to have money to pay your bills, send your kids to college and do charity work and build orphanages. There’s the teaching that we’re supposed to be poor to show that we’re humble. I don’t buy that. I think we’re supposed to be leaders. We’re supposed to excel.
- Joel Olsteen
We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.
- Bill Gates
I think any statement about stock prices is always suspect unless it’s made by Warren Buffett.
- Bill Gates
When you supervise something, it is one thing. When you are in the middle of something, there is a different pace of life.
- Vladimir Potanin
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
Sustaining faith is what sets you through those dark nights of the soul when you don’t know where to go or what to do, and it seems that you can’t last another day…but because of your faith in God, you do.
- Joel Olsteen
Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.
- Jack Welch
Live an active life among people who are doing worthwhile things, keep eyes and ears and mind and heart open to absorb truth, and then tell of the things you know, as if you know them. The world will listen, for the world loves nothing so much as real life.
- Dale Carnegie
Leaders think like a revolutionary not a bureaucrat.
- Napoleon Hill
Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter. It’s about building a system to replace yourself.
- Timothy Ferriss
There’s a way to do it better – find it.
- Thomas Edison
When God puts love and compassion in your heart toward someone, He’s offering you an opportunity to make a difference in that person’s life. You must learn to follow that love. Don’t ignore it. Act on it. Somebody needs what you have.
- Joel Olsteen
Time can be an ally or an enemy. What it becomes depends entirely upon you, your goals, and your determination to use every available minute.
- Zig Ziglar
Getting over the war was biggest adversity I have ever faced.
- Jack Nadel
When we launched the WineLibrary website in 1996, I didn’t even own a computer yet. I just understood that there was an opportunity here to market in a different way.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.
- Zig Ziglar
I find that a duck’s opinion of me is very much influenced over whether or not I have bread
- Mitch Hedberg
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
- Winston Churchill
The only way to solve the problem of Boko Haram is to create jobs.
- Aliko Dangote
Amateurs wait for inspiration. The real pros get up and go to work.
- Harvey Mackay
I go to yoga every day. I meditate every morning.
- Russell Simmons
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
The people’s ability to achieve is determined by their leader’s ability to empower.
- Napoleon Hill
Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
- Steve Jobs
Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and “Know thyself” their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny.
- Peter Drucker
My whole life had been designing computers I could never build.
- Steve Wozniak
Patience is a key element of success.
- Bill Gates
Economists copied their mathematics from the work of 19th-century physicists: they see individuals and businesses as interchangeable atoms, not as unique creators.
- Peter Thiel
Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.
- Henry Ford
It sounds awful, but a crisis rarely ends without blood on the floor. That’s not easy or pleasant. But sadly, it is often necessary so the company can move forward again.
- Jack Welch
There is a revolution happening, and within two years I think that Wi-Fi and Netflix will be built into all the televisions.
- Reed Hastings
We will as ever continue to pursue growth opportunities that will further enhance our ability to capitalize on the investment opportunities and to face the challenges ahead.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The concept of serviced apartments makes economic sense for tenancies of short to medium term duration – a fact many leading Hong Kong and overseas corporations now appreciate.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Be kind.
- Jack Dorsey
In absorbing companies, Rockefeller was secretive and asked them to continue operating under their original names and not divulge their Standard Oil Ownership. They were instructed to retain their original stationary, keep secret accounts, and not allude on paper to their Cleveland connection.
- Ron Chernow
I thought ‘Borat’ was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn’t some studio-produced script with 14 writers.
- Steve Martin
Percentage margins don’t matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.
- Jeff Bezos
Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.
- Dale Carnegie
A lot of advertising has gotten worse. I think it’s kind of lost its nerve, to be honest with you. I feel like the advertising of the ’60s, they were nervier. You know why? Because there was less at stake.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Structure a deal and create a plan around it.
- Jack Nadel
I really enjoy finding the right word, creating a good, flowing sentence. I enjoy the rhythm of the words.
- Steve Martin
When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.
- Jack Handee
Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve.
- Dale Carnegie
A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it.
- Seth Godin
Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.
- John C. Maxwell
I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.
- Warren Buffett
Levi Strauss headed for the gold fields of California to strike it rich in mining. However, he was not a good miner, so he instead began sewing pants out of canvas for the miners who were successful. Today I think most of the world has heard of Levi’s pants.
- Robert Kiyosaki
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
- Babe Ruth
Don’t be different just to be different. Be different to be better.
- Seth Godin
