Like acting, sales works best when hidden. This explains why almost everyone whose job involves distribution—whether they’re in sales, marketing, or advertising—has a job title that has nothing to do with those things. People who sell advertising are called “account executives.” People who sell customers work in “business development.” People who sell companies are “investment bankers.” And people who sell themselves are called “politicians.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
Monopolists downplay their monopoly status to avoid scrutiny, while competitive firms strategically exaggerate their uniqueness.
- Peter Thiel
Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.
- Peter Thiel
Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.
- Bill Gates
I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.
- Richard Branson
People that call old leads, drive old cars.
- Jason Bailey
Failures are life’s way of nudging you and letting you know you are off course. Trying new things and not being afraid to fail along the way are more important than what you learn in school.
- Sara Blakely
We’ll see how that evolves. Obviously, it doesn’t mean we’ll just be willing to do anything that’s requested of us.
- Sergey Brin
I’m not doing my philanthropic work, out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I’m doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it.
- George Soros
I knew, of course, that I had nothing to worry about—personally, at least. But.
- Dale Carnegie
In order to become rich, you need to learn to build systems that can work without you. .
- Robert Kiyosaki
I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.
- Joel Olsteen
China will become the IT (information technology) center of the world. We believe in giving something back and truly becoming a Chinese company.
- John Chambers
When you have an understanding of how someone else lives, the less likely it is that you conflict with them.
- Jack Dorsey
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
- Warren G. Bennis
If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.
- Zig Ziglar
No matter who you are, you need two kinds of friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call when something good happens, and you need someone who will be excited for you. Not a fake excitement veiling envy, but a real excitement. You need someone who will actually be more excited for you than he would be if it had happened to him. The second kind of friend is somebody you can call when things go horribly wrong—when your life is on the line and you only have one phone call. Who is it going to be? Bill Campbell is both of those friends.
- Ben Horowitz
Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.
- Elon Musk
I think that the first thing is you should have a strategic asset allocation mix that assumes that you don’t know what the future is going to hold.
- Ray Dalio
Wal-Mart’s leaders had obviously made a point of educating and informing everyone at all levels about all aspects of the company, and that shows a real respect for their people.
- David Novak
On engagement, we’re already seeing that mobile users are more likely to be daily active users than desktop users. They’re more likely to use Facebook six or seven days of the week.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Medicine is the means by which we poor feeble creatures try to keep from dying or aching.
- P.T. Barnum
Be the one to stand out in the crowd.
- Joel Olsteen
Feel the force!
- Yoda
I personally think that money can do very little. And this has been my experience all across.
- Mukesh Ambani
THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR – One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness, upon the part of the leader, to do more than he requires of his followers.
- Napoleon Hill
When I started the diamond business, no black person, period, was in it to do what we’re trying to do to change the industry. So I like to do things that I see clearly that are in my, you know, scope. And then, I had to figure how I get talented or smart business people around me to execute. That’s what I have to do.
- Russell Simmons
Forty to 60 I would say is your prime. That’s when you know the most, you’ve seen the most, you understand the most, and you still have some physical energy.
- Jerry Seinfeld
If you take a strong stance and have a clear opinion or statement on any subject online, you’re going to polarize people. And without that polarity, there’s no discussion. Discussion is what I want, which means that I’m fine with the consequences.
- Timothy Ferriss
We believed we could build a better search. We had a simple idea that not all pages are created equal. Some are more important.
- Sergey Brin
We sold ‘Seinfeld’ all over the world but it was a very specific kind of show. In some countries it went down really well, in others they hated it.
- Jerry Seinfeld
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
- Winston Churchill
You need to take pride in what God has given you.
- Joel Olsteen
Profitability comes from loyalty, productivity, and having a character base from which to work.
- Zig Ziglar
I learned about why startups should train their people when I worked at Netscape. People at McDonald’s get trained for their positions, but people with far more complicated jobs don’t. It makes no sense.
- Ben Horowitz
If you need to conceal your true nature to get in the door, understand that you’ll probably have to conceal your true nature to keep that job.
- Seth Godin
She said, ‘My family is OK, John, but we lost everything.
- John Chambers
Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them.
- John C. Maxwell
If you and I go around grumbling about ingratitude, who is to blame? Is it human nature—or is it our ignorance of human nature? Let’s not expect gratitude. Then, if we get some occasionally, it will come as a delightful surprise. If we don’t get it, we won’t be disturbed. Here is the first point I am trying to make in this chapter: It is natural for people to forget to be grateful; so, if we go around expecting gratitude, we are headed straight for a lot of heartaches.
- Dale Carnegie
Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man’s character.
- Thomas Edison
People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be air-tight alibis to explain their lack of achievement: 1) If I had the money… 2) If I could get the job… 3) If I had been given a chance… 4) If I were younger… 5) If I were older… 6) If I only had a better education… 7) If I could just save some money… 8) If I lived in a big city… 9) If I were not so fat… 10) If my talents were better known… 11) If I didn’t have a past… 12) If I had my own business… 13) If I had the courage…
- Napoleon Hill
I think my whole life, because of where I came from, I had a fear of failure.
- Howard Schultz
Without the computer, Sam Walton could not have done what he’s done. HE could not have built it. He’s done a lot of other things right too, but he could have done it without the computer,. It would have been possible.
- Abe Marks
History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
- Winston Churchill
There is a winner in you. You were created to be successful, to accomplish your goals, to leave your mark on this generation. You have greatness in you. The key is to get it out.
- Joel Olsteen
A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.
- Zig Ziglar
You’re asking somebody who has a wife and is really happily married, ‘So, what’s your next wife going to be like?’ And I’m like, ‘What?
- Travis Kalanick
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.
- Jack Welch
I kind of thought that stand-up comedy would suffer from the Internet because people seem to know more about the craft of stand-up than ever before. I thought it would seem trite. Kind of like if you know more about magicians, you wouldn’t love them.
- Jerry Seinfeld
You are going to fire Mark Hurd and hire Leo? What I said at the time was that this was the best idea since the Apple board fired Steve Jobs. Really brilliant.
- Larry Ellison
Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.
- John C. Maxwell
Whatever your views on thermodynamics, it’s a powerful metaphor: in business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.
- Peter Thiel
Relationships are leverage. If you give value to someone else first, you have leverage.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Let’s not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Remember Life is too short to be little.
- Dale Carnegie
Keep in mind, hurting people often hurt other people as a result of their own pain. If somebody is rude and inconsiderate, you can almost be certain that they have some unresolved issues inside. They have some major problems, anger, resentment, or some heartache they are trying to cope with or overcome. The last thing they need is for you to make matters worse by responding angrily.
- Joel Olsteen
I am a self-made brat.
- Stephen Wynn
I think people instinctively know that their job is to give service and that they are part of a community. It had a great impact on me when my father walked the picket lines and I walked with him during the civil rights movement.
- Russell Simmons
One way to become creative is to discipline yourself to generate bad ideas. The worse the better. Do it a lot and magically you’ll discover that good ones slip through.
- Seth Godin
All Rhodes Scholars had a great future in their past.
- Peter Thiel
[Less than a week after founding the forerunner to Nike] I forgot to make it part of the original agreement, but I think it ought to be made explicit: There will be no pissing on partners in the shower.
- Phil Knight
When you’ve got a strong enough why, you can always find the how.
- Zig Ziglar
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
- Sam Walton
Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy
- Chris Humphrey
Nobody in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth will ever object to your saying: ‘I may be wrong. Let’s examine the facts.
- Dale Carnegie
I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
- Thomas Edison
The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business.
- Howard Schultz
Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.
- W. Clement Stone
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
I want to help people to help themselves, which is much more valuable for both sides than just making a donation. By training the child of a farmer you compound the value of that dollar spent on training since that child will now help their parents. This is the multiplier effect. There’s no point in just feeding them or just giving them money.
- Lee Shau Kee
Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.
- Dave Barry
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 Group also continues to be bullish for the long-term prospects for the property market in mainland China…
- Lee Shau Kee
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
Find something that you enjoy doing
- Jack Nadel
It is going to be a little, if you will, laboratory for sustainability in businesses of small scale
- Larry Ellison
Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.
- Richard Branson
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
- Oprah Winfrey
Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.
- Ray Kroc
We’d like to believe that efficient, useful, cost-effective products and services are the way to succeed. That hard work is its own reward. Most marketers carry around a worldview that describes themselves as innovators, not storytellers.
- Seth Godin
Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.
- Napoleon Hill
I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.
- Og Mandino
I find it fascinating that a lot of business books that do well are from people who’ve never made any money in business.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The connected economy of ideas demands that we contribute initiative. And yet we resist, because our lizard brain, the one that lives in fear, relentlessly exaggerates the cost of being wrong.
- Seth Godin
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.
- Winston Churchill
I had a feeling once about Mathematics – that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me – the Byss and Abyss. I saw – as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor’s Show – a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.
- Winston Churchill
Lack of Persistence.
- Napoleon Hill
To be Jedi is to face the truth, and choose. Give off light, or darkness, Padawan. Be a candle, or the night.
- Yoda
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
- Winston Churchill
Whether it’s eight o’clock in the morning or eight o’clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.
- Zig Ziglar
The employees who share innovative ideas may also be the folks who have some hidden talents that would help incorporate their suggestions.
- Harvey Mackay
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
- Dale Carnegie
Cherish each hour of this day for it can never return.
- Og Mandino
I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident…. Almost none of my inventions were derived in that manner. They were achieved by having trained myself to be analytical and to endure and tolerate hard work.
- Thomas Edison
I grew up in a house where my father encouraged my brother and me to fail. I specifically remember coming home and saying, ‘Dad, Dad, I tried out for this or that and I was horrible,’ and he would high-five me and say, ‘Way to go.’
- Sara Blakely
Action is the real measure of intelligence.
- Napoleon Hill
People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.
- Mark Zuckerberg
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
Converting a decision into action requires answering several distinct questions: Who has to know of this decision? What action has to be taken? Who is to take it? And what does the action have to be so that the people who have to do it can do it? The first and the last of these are too often overlooked—with dire results.
- Peter Drucker
Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.
- Og Mandino
I like the book. Do you have a problem with that? … I just think it’s a great story of somebody who stood up for what they believe in.
- Travis Kalanick
