Notable Quotables

1. What is our mission?2. Who is our customer?3. What does the customer value?4. What are our results?5. What is our plan?

- Peter Drucker

The people who work within these industries or public services know that there are basic flaws. But they are almost forced to ignore them and to concentrate instead on patching here, improving there, fighting the fire or caulking that crack. They are thus unable to take the innovation seriously, let alone to try to compete with it. They do not, as a rule, even notice it until it has grown so big as to encroach on their industry or service, by which time it has become irreversible. In the meantime, the innovators have the field to themselves.

- Peter Drucker

Companies are like countries in this way. Bad decisions made early on—if you choose the wrong partners or hire the wrong people, for example—are very hard to correct after they are made. It may take a crisis on the order of bankruptcy before anybody will even try to correct them. As a founder, your first job is to get the first things right, because you cannot build a great company on a flawed foundation.

- Peter Thiel

You don’t have to fear defeat if you believe it may reveal powers that you didn’t know you possessed.

- Napoleon Hill

I would call lack of candor the biggest dirty little secret in business, basically blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.

- Jack Welch

You have everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself.

- Seth Godin

I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.

- Elon Musk

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

- Henry Ford

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.

- Jeff Bezos

In 20 years from now we will all be able to click and watch TV.

- Reed Hastings

30 MAJOR CAUSES OF FAILURE: – Napoleon Hill (on leadership and management)

- Napoleon Hill

But there is no reason why technology should be limited to computers. Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.

- Peter Thiel

Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.

- Jim Collins

You need to be around people who know more than you and have more talent than you. Don’t be intimidated by them, be inspired.

- Joel Olsteen

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.

My God, these guys don’t even know what the return-on-investment will be on this thing.

- James C. Collins

You hope that one or both of them win a race right before our race. I know that in the past, when Bill Elliott won it always boosted sales here.

- Ed Clark

Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a ‘genius’ is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.

- Thomas Edison

I never thought about success. I always thought about doing the job at hand. My goal was getting through the show that night.

- Steve Martin

My father had a series of blue-collar jobs and never made more than $20,000 a year. When I was seven, he got injured on a job. That was a very important point – because of the injury, he couldn’t walk, and the company he was working for did not pay him. There was no compensation. So there was no money and no food.

- Howard Schultz

technology is important—you can’t remain a laggard and hope to be great. But technology by itself is never a primary cause of either greatness or decline.

- James C. Collins

People who build family businesses are not classically trained. They have to deal with an enormous amount of politics. You think corporate politics are tough? Go work for your dad or your mom.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

I say, don’t try to fight your own battles because God will do it.

- Joel Olsteen

In the short term, the market is a popularity contest. In the long term, the market is a weighing machine.

- Warren Buffett

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

- Joel Olsteen

True economy consists in always making the income exceed the out-go. Wear the old clothes a little longer if necessary; dispense with the new pair of gloves; mend the old dress: live on plainer food if need be; so that, under all circumstances, unless some unforeseen accident occurs, there will be a margin in favor of the income.

- P.T. Barnum

People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.

- Zig Ziglar

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But… I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

- Thomas Edison

1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality.2. A bad plan is better than no plan.3. Competitive markets destroy profits.4. Sales matters just as much as product.

- Peter Thiel

Having a personality of caring about people is important. You cant be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.

- Richard Branson

The elevator to success is not running, you must climb the stairs.

- Zig Ziglar

In American math classes, we teach a lot of concepts poorly over many years. In the Asian systems they teach you very few concepts very well over a few years.

- Bill Gates

Learning is not done to you, it is something you choose to do.

- Seth Godin

The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy.

- Michael Bloomberg

If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.

- Winston Churchill

I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 18. I started a company with a bunch of buddies that got funded in my senior year, and that’s when I finished school. It was called Scour, a peer-to-peer service, file-sharing.

- Travis Kalanick

Globalization replaced technology as the hope for the future. Since the ’90s migration “from bricks to clicks” didn’t work as hoped, investors went back to bricks (housing) and BRICs (globalization). The result was another bubble, this time in real estate.

- Peter Thiel

Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hard problems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done.

- Peter Thiel

I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

- Tony Robbins

Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map—these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.

- Seth Godin

No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.

- Andrew Carnegie

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

- Winston Churchill

People at McDonald’s get trained for their positions, but people with far more complicated jobs don’t. It makes no sense. Would you want to stand on the line of the untrained person at McDonald’s? Would you want to use the software written by the engineer who was never told how the rest of the code worked? A lot of companies think their employees are so smart that they require no training. That’s silly.

- Ben Horowitz

When you have a dream that you can’t let go of, trust your instincts and pursue it. But remember: Real dreams take work, They take patience, and sometimes they require you to dig down very deep. Be sure you’re willing to do that.

- Harvey Mackay

Investing in courage and determination was an easy decision for me.

- Ben Horowitz

I founded Netflix. I’ve built it steadily over 12 years now, first with DVD becoming profitable in 2002, a head-to-head ferocious battle with Blockbuster and evolving the company toward streaming.

- Reed Hastings

We are fastidious investors. On average, we investnearly 20 percent of our household realized income each year. Most of us invest at least 15 percent. Seventy-nine percent of us have at least one account with a brokerage company. But we make our own investment decisions.

- Thomas J Stanley

I thought if I had a Twitter feed and say I had a following of a 100,000, that means 100,000 of them would be interested in my book. It was logical, but it didn’t turn out to be true. It turned out if I had a Twitter feed of a 100,000, four of them were interested in my book.

- Steve Martin

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

First and foremost, there is a difference between being perceived as an expert and being one. In the context of business, the former is what sells product and the latter, relative to your minimal customer base,” is what creates good products and prevents returns.

- Timothy Ferriss

Most people have ‘one way’ brains—they acquire information and do nothing. Guerillas have ‘two way’ brains—they obtain relevant information and act on it.

- Jay Conrad Levinson

If a product’s future is unlikely to be remarkable – if you can’t imagine a future in which people are once again fascinated by your product – it’s time to realize that the game has changed. Instead of investing in a dying product, take profits and reinvest them in building something new.

- Seth Godin

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.

- Warren Buffett

The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.

- John C. Maxwell

It is a well known fact that Henry Ford began his business career under the handicap of poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance. It is an equally well known fact that, within the inconceivably short period of ten years, Mr. Ford mastered these three handicaps, and that within twenty-five years he made himself one of the richest men in America. Connect with this fact, the additional knowledge that Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticeable, from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.

- Napoleon Hill

Even god doesn’t propose to judge a man till his last days, why should you and I?

- Dale Carnegie

I come back to the same thing: We’ve got the greatest pipeline in the company’s history in the next 12 months, and we’ve had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we’re predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year ’06.

- Steve Ballmer

I DECLARE breakthroughs are coming in my life, sudden bursts of God’s goodness. Not a trickle. Not a stream. But a flood of God’s power. A flood of healing. A flood of wisdom. A flood of favor. I am a breakthrough person and I choose to live breakthrough minded. I am expecting God to overwhelm me with His goodness and amaze me with His favor. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

I will not talk to God about how big my problems are. I will talk to my problems about how big my God is. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared, but only men of character are trusted.

- Zig Ziglar

Do not wait: the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.

- Napoleon Hill

The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized and watered. Nothing happens for the first year. There´s no sign of growth. Not even a hint. The same thing happens – or doesn´t happen – the second year. And then the third year. The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything. For eight years it can continue. Eight years! Then – after the eight years of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it – the bamboo tree suddently sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months!

- Zig Ziglar

The secret of your success is found in your daily routine

- John Maxwell

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.

- Zig Ziglar

I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed…You only have to be right once…I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.

- Mark Cuban

It’s no surprise that these fields all attract disproportionate numbers of high-achieving Ivy League optionality chasers; what could be a more appropriate reward for two decades of résumé-building than a seemingly elite, process-oriented career that promises to “keep options open”?

- Peter Thiel

I just think that it’s strong and it’s important that we recognize what the Christmas season is about; it’s about the birth of our Savior, and there’s a lot of pressure today to be politically correct, but people are realizing, too, that you have to be open to express your faith what you want believe.

- Joel Olsteen

The hardest thing about starting a company and running a company is, there’s just so many expectations on you, and there are so many people who have things that they want you to do. It’s a lot like life about that.

- Ben Horowitz

The thing about fashion – it’s like ducks going quack, quack quack. It’s being dictated from above, and it just makes me want to rebel against it.

- Sara Blakely

Many entrepreneurs focus only on short-term growth. They have an excuse: growth is easy to measure, but durability isn’t.

- Peter Thiel

I’m considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family – father, mother, children – is fundamental to our civilisation.

- Rupert Murdoch

The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for.

- Zig Ziglar

I was not naturally talented. I didn’t sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.

- Steve Martin

I feel like my message is to let people know that God is a good God, that He’s on their side, and no matter what happens, He has a great plan for them.

- Joel Olsteen

Un cambio de actitud Lo que diferencia a los individuos exitosos de aquellos que languidecen es exactamente lo mismo que separa a las organizaciones innovadoras y en crecimiento de aquellas que se estancan y mueren. Los ganadores han convertido la iniciativa en una pasión y en una práctica. Adelante, prepara una lista de las personas y organizaciones a las que admiras. Apuesto a que el séptimo imperativo es lo que las hace destacar. Como ves, el reto no consiste en perfeccionar tu capacidad de saber cuándo empezar o cuándo mantenerte al margen, sino en adoptar la costumbre de empezar.

- Seth Godin

The saving of money is solely a matter of habit. It is literally true that man, through the Law of Habit, shapes his own personality. Through repetition, any act indulged in a few times becomes a habit, and the mind appears to be nothing more than a mass of motivating forces growing out of our daily habits. When once fixed in the mind a habit voluntarily impels one to action.

- Napoleon Hill

In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.

- Ben Horowitz

Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.

- Seth Godin

The thorough man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment to ends.

- Andrew Carnegie

Have you ever heard of Gmail? Ever used it? If so, it’s not because Gmail ran a lot of TV ads (they didn’t). It’s because the manifesto of free email got to you.

- Seth Godin

My opinion is it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars.

- Elon Musk

If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.

- Jack Welch

The most obvious market segment in email-based payments was the millions of emigrants still using Western Union to wire money to their families back home. Our product made that effortless, but the transactions were too infrequent.

- Peter Thiel

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