When you’re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out—this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it’s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break. Zig Ziglar taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don’t allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, “hey, maybe I should check my e-mail for a while, or you know, I could use a nap.” If you do that, the lizard brain will soon be trained to use that escape hatch again and again.
- Seth Godin
Notable Quotables
We just want to have great people working for us.
- Sergey Brin
I’ve never preached one sermon on money, on just finances. I want to stay away from it.
- Joel Olsteen
China is the new horizon.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep form meddling with them while they do it.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Residential property prices will pick up steadily.
- Lee Shau Kee
Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
- Winston Churchill
Real estate deals a lot with the government. It isn’t like manufacturing, logistics, home appliances or the auto sector, which deal with consumers.
- Wang Jianlin
Take calculated risks. Act boldly and thoughtfully. Be an agile company.
- Ray Kroc
Magazines, trade publications and out outlets that relate specifically to your field of interest. If you’re a musician, Billboard, Rolling Stone and Spin top your list; if you’re a chef or restaurateur, the Gourmet or Bon Appetit and the food section of your local paper top yours.
- Michael Levine
Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.
- Bill Gates
My revenue was $4 million my first year in business, off of one $20 item.
- Sara Blakely
You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.
- Reid Hoffman
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
- Warren Buffett
Give your good bacteria an upgrade and get your microbiome in shape. Faster fat-loss and better mental health are just two of the benefits.
- Timothy Ferriss
The local property market witnessed a slowdown following the 9-11 incident in the United States, under an environment of high unemployment and sustained deflation in Hong Kong. On the whole, property prices showed a slight decline as compared with the price levels recorded in the previous financial year.
- Lee Shau Kee
Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract failure.
- Timothy Ferriss
It’s flattering to people who stop you and say that you’ve helped them and all. But, again, you know, you’ve got to stay humble because as quick as you came up, you can come down.
- Joel Olsteen
Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.
- Seth Godin
When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.
- Winston Churchill
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
When the value of the company clearly has fallen below what its assets are worth, having a shareholder who says, ‘Let’s get a better board’ can be helpful.
- Ben Horowitz
If change is happening on the outside faster than on the inside the end is in sight.
- Jack Welch
Bill Campbell developed an excellent methodology for measuring executives in a balanced way that will help you achieve this. He breaks performance down into four distinct areas.
- Ben Horowitz
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
It’s tangible, it’s solid, it’s beautiful. It’s artistic, from my standpoint, and I just love real estate.
- Donald Trump
If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.
- Jeff Bezos
I do a little thing about the way people shake the sweetener packet. You know, like they’re all excited. I want to get all the granules down to one end. I love all these rituals.
- Jerry Seinfeld
If you want to create and capture lasting value, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business.
- Peter Thiel
The new information technology… Internet and e-mail… have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.
- Peter Drucker
Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.
- Peter Thiel
It is very difficult to get people to focus on the most important things when you’re in boom times.
- Jeff Bezos
I know if I stopped hosting ‘Wine Library TV,’ we’d probably lose 75 percent of our audience, but the remaining 25 percent is still a big number.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.
- Jeff Bezos
Think and grow rich.
- Napoleon Hill
I believe God gives you the grace to do what you need to do.
- Joel Olsteen
The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.
- George Soros
It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
- Ronald Reagan
If they really don’t want to buy the flats, I’ll take their deposits.
- Lee Shau Kee
For years we thought of ourselves as a production-oriented company, meaning we put all our emphasis on designing and manufacturing the products. But now we understand the most important thing we do is market the product… Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.
- Phil Knight
The one thing coaches cannot tolerate… is the individual who grows arrogant because he excelled at a lower level and believes he has nothing else to learn.
- Zig Ziglar
An asteroid or a supervolcano could certainly destroy us, but we also face risks the dinosaurs never saw: An engineered virus, nuclear war, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us.
- Elon Musk
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The greatest decision of all time, as far as any American citizen is concerned was reached in Philadelphia, July 4th 1776, when 56 men signed their names to a document, which they well knew would bring freedom to all Americans, or leave every one of the fifty-six hanging from the gallows. On July 4th 1776 Thomas Jefferson stood before the Assembly and fearlessly read the most momentus Decision ever placed upon paper.
- Napoleon Hill
If plan A” fails — remember you have 25 letters left.
- Chris Guillebeau
The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.
- Warren Buffett
Mike suggested that we might want to turn our stockholders’ meetings into an event, and we went along with him.
- Sam Walton
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.”
- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
- Winston Churchill
Much of our strategic shift is providing production advances over the next 60 days in the Gulf Coast. This effort sets the stage for Gulf Coast growth in 2006, along with production growth in our East, West and Canada regions.
- Dan Dinges
I’m an entrepreneur first and a wine critic second.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience.
- Howard Schultz
Access to play should be a kid’s inalienable right.
- Phil Knight
Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.
- George Soros
Let’s make it easy and take more and more of the friction out as we can.
- Jack Dorsey
You must find something that you deeply love and are passionate about and are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve.
- Howard Schultz
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
Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.
- Yoda
Never under estimate the other guy.
- Jack Welch
What if there were no longer only two sides? Not just capital versus labor, but a third team, one that straddled elements of both? I think there’s a huge opportunity for a third kind of participant, a linchpin, and now there is an opportunity to change all the rules that we’ve lived with all our lives. There is a shortage of this third kind of worker, and that shortage means that the market needs you desperately. The con game is ending, at least for people passionate enough to do something about it.
- Seth Godin
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
- Mark Twain
Steve Jobs’ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.
- Bill Gates
The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.
- Thomas Edison
This shows you are never too old to get surprised.
- Jack Welch
Chance can allow you to accomplish a goal every once in a while, but consistent achievement happens only if you love what you are doing.
- Bart Conner
If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.
- Joel Olsteen
I very much believe that creating a sense of fun and keeping up everyone’s energy level is part of my job description. – David Novak CEO OF Yum! Brands
- David Novak
The story drives the mission.
- Jim Cathcart
Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love.
- Buddha
Why don’t we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they’d also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where.
- James Simons
Monotony reveals our limitations.
- Dale Carnegie
On the Internet, companies are scale businesses, characterized by high fixed costs and relatively low variable costs. You can be two sizes: You can be big, or you can be small. It’s very hard to be medium. A lot of medium-sized companies had the financing rug pulled out from under them before they could get big.
- Jeff Bezos
The Internet will help achieve friction free capitalism” by putting buyer and seller in direct contact and providing more information to both about each other.
- Bill Gates
We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life. And it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001.
- Michael Bloomberg
People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, ‘Soave,’ and say, ‘Oh, O.K., cool.’
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Happiness is not a tangible thing, it’s a byproduct – a byproduct of achievement.
- Ray Kroc
I don’t know how you can justify leaving any engagement behind in the social Web of 2011.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Think of social media as the Internet. I can’t think of anyone betting against the Internet in 2012.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.
- Walt Disney
Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Is it really necessary to work like a slave to live like a millionaire?
- Timothy Ferriss
Time is your most precious asset.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
- Napoleon Hill
If you are not confused, you don´t know what is going on.
- Jack Welch
E – Edge, ability to make tough yes and no decisions
- Jack Welch
The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum fortune, it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick.
- P.T. Barnum
Our goal is very simply to become the desktop for e-businesses.
- Larry Ellison
I’m not a businessman — I’m a business, man.
- Jay-Z
Xiaomi looks a bit like Apple but is really more like Amazon with some elements of Google.
- Lei Jun
I’ve been fascinated with technology since I was a boy banging around on my father’s adding machine. Back then I’d type in an equation, the device made some cool noises, and out came my answer. I was hooked.
- Michael Dell
Consider this: you are today what you believed about yourself yesterday. And you will be tomorrow what you believe about yourself right now.
- Joel Olsteen
Hope is the engine of your attitude, and your attitude determines your altitude.
- Zig Ziglar
By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer.
- Bill Gates
China and the U.S. need each other very badly. Yes, we should argue about some things, but it’s not an ‘us versus them,’ it’s an ‘us and them’ type scenario.
- Bill Gates
If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was ‘satisfactory,’ I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?
- Bill Gates
This is why successful network businesses rarely get started by MBA types: the initial markets are so small that they often don’t even appear to be business opportunities at all.
- Peter Thiel
Earl Nightingale has inspired more people toward success and fortune than any other motivational speaker on the planet.
- Zig Ziglar
I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.
- George Soros
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
- Yoda
If your access to health care involves your leaving work and driving somewhere and parking and waiting for a long time, that’s not going to promote healthiness.
- Larry Page
