I think so many people are reactive… they see things in a short term way they’re right up against it.
- Ray Dalio
Notable Quotables
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.
- Zig Ziglar
Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we’ve had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you’re really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have.
- Steve Ballmer
In a company, hundreds of decisions get made, but objectives and goals are thin.
- Ben Horowitz
Too often, we have tended to fall into a trap of creating plain hamburgers.
- Tadashi Yanai
A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.
- Elon Musk
I would get records by Earl Scruggs… I would tune my banjo down and I’d pick out the songs note by note. Learned how to play that way. I persevered. There was a book written by Pete Seeger, who showed you some basic strumming and some basic picking… And I kind of worked out my own style of playing.
- Steve Martin
If your offering itself isn’t remarkable, then it’s invisible — no matter how much you spend on well-crafted advertising.
- Seth Godin
Meeting sports athletes that are the best in the world is a thrill to this day.
- Phil Knight
If people look inward, they would see the opportunities for greatness.
- Aliko Dangote
The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face.
- Napoleon Hill
I absolutely don’t have $20 billion. But I’d love to, right?
- Jack Ma
I’m a big supporter of President Obama.
- Russell Simmons
If you have enough push, you don’t have to worry about the pull.
- Zig Ziglar
True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can’t be mandated. It must be earned. The only thing that a title can buy is a little time.
- Napoleon Hill
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
We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.
- Henry Ford
It doesn’t hurt to ask Actually, it does hurt. It does hurt to ask the wrong way, to ask without preparation, to ask without permission. It hurts because you never get another chance to ask right.
- Seth Godin
(Wright is) a visionary with a great strategic mind, and he’s a strong business leader with outstanding people skills, … He’s a terrific guy and will be a key force in guiding the company’s future growth.
- Jack Welch
Monopolists downplay their monopoly status to avoid scrutiny, while competitive firms strategically exaggerate their uniqueness.
- Peter Thiel
As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is one of the freest and most vibrant nations in the world. And as an immigrant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration policies that will keep America the most economically robust, creative and freedom-loving nation in the world.
- Rupert Murdoch
A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.
- Thomas Edison
I described the CEO job as knowing what to do and getting the company to do what you want. Designing a proper company culture will help you get your company to do what you want in certain important areas for a very long time.
- Ben Horowitz
Not long ago somebody showed me an article written for a local magazine in 1960. IT was called Success Story of the Year, and it described how we had built up an empire of nine variety stores. Then it quoted me as saying that we probably wouldn’t grow much more because I believed in personally supervising the nine-store group, and I thought any more stores would be unwieldy to manager without additional supervisors. So what the heck happened? How did we ever get to be the largest retailer in the world with a philosophy like that?
- Sam Walton
Wrong Selection of Associates in Business
- Napoleon Hill
Trump has been very influential in helping me expand by vision. Sometimes I talk to Donald two or three times a day, and he’s taught me many things. The best thing was a story he tells me about buying a building. When he built Trump Tower he also bought the rights to use the Tiffany name on the building. It was gonna be Tiffany Tower. He late father said, Yeah right. When you change your name to Tiffany, you call it Tiffany Tower. But for now, you call it Trump. Over a period of years whenever he was in trouble, his name and his promotion of himself as a brand are what saved him. I keep that lesson in mind. I remember how connecting Def Comedy Jam to Def Jam records helped both entities – associating HBO with an established hip-hop brand helped get the show on the air, while linking the label to a hot TV show helped the label survive a cold period.
- Russell Simmons
Learn to speak God’s favor over every area of your life. Remember, the more favor-minded you are, the more of God’s favor you’re going to experience.
- Joel Olsteen
I failed the LSAT. Basically, if I had not failed, I’d have been a lawyer and there would be no Spanx. I think failure is nothing more than life’s way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating.
- Sara Blakely
Well, we’re about 24 million subscribers today, and that’s up from about 15 million a year ago, so it’s a very high rate of growth, and that’s what’s exciting about the business – more and more people are getting smart TVs, they’re watching Netflix on their iPads.
- Reed Hastings
You can’t jump to vegan if you’re not. Some people are absolute. Some people are able to be gradual.
- Russell Simmons
Mitt – what I speak to Mitt Romney about is jobs. What I speak to Mitt Romney about is China, because he’s got a great view on China and how they’re trying to destroy our country by taking our jobs and making our product and manipulating their currency, so that it makes it almost impossible for our companies to compete.
- Donald Trump
The first complaint we hear from everyone is: ‘Why would I want to join this stupid useless thing and know what my brother’s eating for lunch?’ But that really misses the point because Twitter is fundamentally recipient-controlled – you choose to listen and you choose to leave. But you also choose what to put down and what to share.
- Jack Dorsey
Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I’d do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.
- Steve Martin
I am convinced that in order for you, as a patient, to be protected, it has to be transparent, evidence-based, objective information. Not self-serving information. Not pharma-driven information. Not ad-driven information. It is transparent, objective, evidence-based information.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Modern society is based on a modern idea: get the work done by replaceable cogs, by individuals programmed to do what they’re told, follow instructions and work cheap. The attraction of this system is evident by how easily ordinary organizations replace ordinary employees, and how eagerly schools indoctrinate their students.
- Seth Godin
The first is the result of a decision to act—to do something. This type of mistake is made with incomplete information, as it’s impossible to have all the facts beforehand. This is to be encouraged. Fortune favors the bold. The second is the result of a decision of sloth—to not do something—wherein we refuse to change a bad situation out of fear despite having all the facts. This is how learning experiences become terminal punishments, bad relationships become bad marriages, and poor job choices become lifelong prison sentences.
- Timothy Ferriss
Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.
- Steve Wozniak
One who works the same reactive 40 hours per week and takes the same amount of sick days and holidays off as his or her employees, yet expects to make significantly more than everyone else simply because they have the title of owner and are thus making the loan payments and the lease payments.
- Clay Clark
It is possible to know all there is to know about a subject—medicine, for example—but if you don’t have M.D. at the end of your name, few will listen. The M.D. is what I term a credibility indicator.” The so-called expert with the most credibility indicators, whether acronyms or affiliations, is often the most successful in the marketplace, even if other candidates have more in-depth knowledge. This is a matter of superior positioning, not deception.
- Timothy Ferriss
Your story needs to move people’s spirits and build their goodwill, so that when you finally do ask them to buy from you, they feel like you’ve given them so much it would be almost rude to refuse.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
After the decline in the past few years, the worst moment in the economy of Hong Kong is now behind us. The local property market is expected to show a steady upward trend as from this point.
- Lee Shau Kee
The reason Steve Herrell’s shop did so well is that it was famous for having a line! People brought folks from out of town to have the experience.
- Seth Godin
The great football coach John Madden was once asked whether he would tolerate a player like Terrell Owens on his team. Owens was both one of the most talented players in the game and one of the biggest jerks. Madden answered, “If you hold the bus for everyone on the team, then you’ll be so late you’ll miss the game, so you can’t do that. The bus must leave on time. However, sometimes you’ll have a player that’s so good that you hold the bus for him, but only him.
- Ben Horowitz
One of my lifelong practices is to pay my obligations on time, especially my suppliers. Even in my early years as retailer, I didn’t delay my payments to suppliers, because I tell my kids that we have to be considerate to suppliers and think of their own hinyong or how they have to protect their sense of trustworthiness with others.
- Henry Sy
If you can see the invisible, God will do the impossible.
- Joel Olsteen
He had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed.
- Thomas Edison
If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?
- Bill Gates
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
Imagine if you had baseball cards that showed all the performance stats for your people: batting averages, home runs, errors, ERAs, win/loss records. You could see what they did well and poorly and call on the right people to play the right positions in a very transparent way.
- Ray Dalio
The choice to have a great attitude is something that nobody or no circumstance can take from you.
- Zig Ziglar
Athletic skills are acquired over a long period of time and after countless hours of practice.
- Zig Ziglar
Maintaining a consistent platform also helps improve product support – a significant problem in the software industry.
- Bill Gates
Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
- Winston Churchill
Law of Credibility – Don’t say anything you can’t prove. Be able to prove anything you say.
- Jerry Vass
Thinking back to old-time computer programming in the days before programming languages supported internationalization, we used to have to “internationalize” our code. We called this internationalization process “I18N” for short (localization was L10N), which meant I followed by eighteen letters followed by N.
- Ben Horowitz
The only career worth pursuing is the one that turns your crank.
- Jack Welch
I probably have about four or five cups of coffee a day. I make myself an espresso macchiato when I wake, which is a shot of espresso and just a dollop of steamed milk. Then, if I’m going to do some work at home, I would make myself a French press. It’s the best way to make conventional coffee.
- Howard Schultz
To properly value a business, you also have to discount those future cash flows to their present worth, since a given amount of money today is worth more than the same amount in the future.
- Peter Thiel
Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money, it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?
- Joel Olsteen
No leader enjoys making the tough decision. We constantly faced severe resistence from even the best people in our organization. I’ve struggled with this problem myself and have often been guilty of not being rigorous enough. Every impulse is to look the other way.
- Jack Welch
The truth is, somebody is always talking about you, so you have to let it go… if it’s not a part of your God-given destiny.
- Joel Olsteen
The first three-and-a-half months of calendar year 2001 have been extremely challenging for many of us in high-tech.
- John Chambers
I didn’t like the way it looked in white trousers, and I couldn’t find anything to work underneath them.
- Sara Blakely
Certainly, the Windows share of servers is strong.
- Bill Gates
I am wired like a CEO and care a great deal about the bottom line, but I care about my customers even more than that. That’s always been my competitive advantage.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I think how you start the day many times determines what kind of day you’re going to have.
- Joel Olsteen
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
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
- Winston Churchill
Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we get it right. When this process works, it means our failures are relatively small in size (most experiments can start small), and when we hit on something that is really working for customers, we double-down on it with hopes to turn it into an even bigger success.
- Jeff Bezos
When you’re building a business or joining a company, you have to be transparent; you can’t have two sets of information for two sets of people.
- Howard Schultz
My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
- Oprah Winfrey
In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
- Harry Truman
You will make all kinds of mistakes, but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth.
- Winston Churchill
Gold is a kind of mortar and offers a form of capital preservation. We’re still bullish about gold.
- Lee Shau Kee
It has been almost a decade since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Hong Kong has gone through both good times and bad times. During the past decade, Hong Kong has undoubtedly played an increasingly important role in the economic development of China.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Americans reading the paper, listening to the news every single day, and all you hear is things are getting worse and worse. And that has a psychological effect on consumer confidence. That’s what consumer confidence is.
- Howard Schultz
The Real ReasonNew College Grads Can’t Get Hired shocked many when it reported, The Workforce Solutions Group at St. Louis Community College finds that more than 60% of employers say applicants lack communication and interpersonal skills
- Martha C. White
I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.
- Timothy Ferriss
People have come to me over the years and said to me: ‘I admire the culture of Starbucks. Can you come give a speech and help us turn our culture around?’ I wish it were that easy. Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it’s based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions.
- Howard Schultz
A third of the people who rush to psychiatrists for help could probably cure themselves if they could only do as Margaret Yates did: get interested in helping others. My idea? No, that is approximately what Carl Jung said. And he ought to know—if anybody does. He said: About one third of my patients are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.” To put it another way, they are trying to thumb a ride through life—and the parade passes them by. So they rush to a psychiatrist with their petty, senseless, useless lives. Having missed the boat, they stand on the wharf, blaming everyone except themselves and demanding that the world cater to their self-centered desires.
- Dale Carnegie
When marketing put yourself in the shoes of the customer.
- David Novak
China has set its cultural industries as pillar industries.
- Wang Jianlin
I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
- Elon Musk
Character is to man what carbon is to steel.
- Napoleon Hill
On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.
- Joel Olsteen
You should evaluate your organizational design on a regular basis and gather the information that you need to decide without tipping people off to what you plan to do. Once you decide, you should immediately execute the reorg: Don’t leave time for leaks and lobbying.
- Ben Horowitz
It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.
- Winston Churchill
The fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain.
- Zig Ziglar
I’m telling you, you can’t compare Saudi Arabia to other countries.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Potential means that you haven’t done it yet.
- David Novak
We bring together the best ideas – turning the meetings of our top managers into intellectual orgies.
- Jack Welch
My favorite museums are things like the Frick Museum in New York and the Huntington Hartford in Pasadena where it’s someone’s home that you walk through.
- Larry Ellison
We have an average household net worth of $3.7 million. Of course, some of our cohorts have accumulated much more. Nearly 6 percent have a net worth of over $10 million. Again, these people skew our average upward. The typical (median, or 50th percentile) millionaire household has a net worth of $1.6 million.
- Thomas J Stanley
I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I have worked at Nike and its predecessor company for 48 years. Some might call me a short timer.
- Phil Knight
I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.
- Warren Buffett
It is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people.
- Winston Churchill
At your next sales meeting with 20 people, three will take home the money of 17 others. Is it luck, hard work and a great attitude? Or it is persuasive skill – understanding the transactional dynamics of the sales process?
- Jerry Vass
Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that’s more productive.
- Donald Trump
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
- Winston Churchill
