One of the challenges in networking is everybody thinks it’s making cold calls to strangers. Actually, it’s the people who already have strong trust relationships with you, who know you’re dedicated, smart, a team player, who can help you.
- Reid Hoffman
Notable Quotables
…What I have denied and what my reason compels me to deny, is the existence of a Being throned above us as a god, directing our mundane affairs in detail, regarding us as individuals, punishing us, rewarding us as human judges might. When the churches learn to take this rational view of things, when they become true schools of ethics and stop teaching fables, they will be more effective than they are to-day… If they would turn all that ability to teaching this one thing – the fact that honesty is best, that selfishness and lies of any sort must surely fail to produce happiness – they would accomplish actual things. Religious faiths and creeds have greatly hampered our development. They have absorbed and wasted some fine intellects. That creeds are getting to be less and less important to the average mind with every passing year is a good sign, I think, although I do not wish to talk about what is commonly called theology. The criticisms which have been hurled at me have not worried me. A man cannot control his beliefs. If he is honest in his frank expression of them, that is all that can in justice be required of him. Professor Thomson and a thousand others do not in the least agree with me. His criticism of me, as I read it, charged that because I doubted the soul’s immortality, or ‘personality,’ as he called it, my mind must be abnormal, ‘pathological,’ in other, words, diseased… I try to say exactly what I honestly believe to be the truth, and more than that no man can do. I honestly believe that creedists have built up a mighty structure of inaccuracy, based, curiously, on those fundamental truths which I, with every honest man, must not alone admit but earnestly acclaim. I have been working on the same lines for many years. I have tried to go as far as possible toward the bottom of each subject I have studied. I have not reached my conclusions through study of traditions; I have reached them through the study of hard fact. I cannot see that unproved theories or sentiment should be permitted to have influence in the building of conviction upon matters so important. Science proves its theories or it rejects them. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. I earnestly believe that I am right; I cannot help believing as I do… I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation. The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study. …Moral teaching is the thing we need most in this world, and many of these men could be great moral teachers if they would but give their whole time to it, and to scientific search for the rock-bottom truth, instead of wasting it upon expounding theories of theology which are not in the first place firmly based. What we need is search for fundamentals, not reiteration of traditions born in days when men knew even less than we do now.
- Thomas Edison
Don’t blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.
- John D. Rockefeller
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
It is easy to think that the things that bother you will upset your people more. That’s not true. The opposite is true. Nobody takes the losses harder than the person most responsible. Nobody feels it more than you.
- Ben Horowitz
Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.
- Bill Gates
It’s surreal to think that I own this beautiful island. It doesn’t feel like anyone can own Lanai. What it feels like to me is this really cool 21st-century engineering project, where I get to work with the people of Lanai to create a prosperous and sustainable Eden in the Pacific.
- Larry Ellison
I’m for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?
- Steve Martin
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
Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody’s got to pay for them so they’re a necessary evil.
- Michael Bloomberg
If he actually looks like a salesman, he’s probably bad at sales and worse at tech.
- Peter Thiel
Consensus decisions about executives almost always sway the process away from strength and toward lack of weakness.
- Ben Horowitz
You learn how to be book smart in school, but you better not forget that you also need to be street smart.
- Harvey Mackay
Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the ‘naturals’, the ones who somehow know how to teach.
- Peter Drucker
Our favorite holding period is forever.
- Warren Buffett
The problem with New Year’s resolutions – and resolutions to ‘get in better shape’ in general, which are very amorphous – is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn’t work. I don’t care if you’re a world-class CEO – you’ll quit.
- Timothy Ferriss
Always remember that nothing kills great ideas more than people with small ideas and limited imaginations.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
- Og Mandino
More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.
- Napoleon Hill
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.
- Thomas Edison
The difference between blues, jazz, rock n’ roll and rap is that rap stayed poor. Even the white rappers are poor. It’s scarier to look at poor people; it makes everyone uncomfortable. Their pain is something that people would like to see swept under the rug.
- Russell Simmons
No one has a transparent view of the world. In fact, we all carry around a personal worldview—the biases and experiences and expectations that color the way we perceive the world.
- Seth Godin
Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless.
- James C. Collins
And yet the real success goes to those who obsess. The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world.
- Seth Godin
One thing that most comic artists avoid is showing decisions. They show action, sure, and they show results, but they don’t show (because it’s difficult to show) the hero or the villain making a choice.
- Seth Godin
The issue of Palestine has been there since more than 60 years. But more important since 1967 when the war was, ended in the defeat of some Arab countries.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Remember that this is what separates the women from the girls. If you want to be great, this is the challenge. If you don’t want to be great, then you never should have started a company.
- Ben Horowitz
Most of our wives are planners and meticulous budgeters. In fact, only 18 percent of us disagreed with the statement Charity begins at home. Most of us will tell you that our wives are a lot more conservative with money than we are.
- Thomas J Stanley
Teams only succeed when the players have a unified vision, no matter how much talent or potential there is.
- John Maxwell
It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.
- Paul Graham
There was a moment when I was watching Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in ‘Badboys’ that I felt, you know, inspired. I don’t know if I was proud, because so many people do the work. Everyone’s part of a team that develops over the years and gives people chances. There have been some good moments watching people develop.
- Russell Simmons
They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.
- Winston Churchill
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 most stable companies have strong leaders at every level of the organization. The only way to develop such widespread leadership is to make developing leaders a part of your culture. That is a strong part of Coca-Cola’s legacy.
- John Maxwell
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.
- John Maxwell
Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don’t hang around long enough for his/her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people.
- Zig Ziglar
Going the extra mile is the action of rendering more and better service than that for which you are presently paid. When you go the extra mile, the Law of Compensation comes into play.
- Napoleon Hill
When you allow what someone says or does to upset you, you’re allowing that person to control you.
- Joel Olsteen
RULE 2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.
- Jack Welch
If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
- John D. Rockefeller
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.
- Dale Carnegie
People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar
I do think this next century, hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where you don’t just think, yes my country is doing well, but you think about the world at large.
- Bill Gates
Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing, right into your product or service. Not slapping on marketing as a last-minute add-on, but understanding that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.
- Seth Godin
You don’t overcome challenges by making them smaller but by making yourself bigger.
- John C. Maxwell
Your first projects aren’t the greatest things in the world, and they may have no money value, they may go nowhere, but that is how you learn – you put so much effort into making something right if it is for yourself.
- Steve Wozniak
If you are only big in China, you are only a local Chinese company.
- Wang Jianlin
It’s Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.
- Larry Ellison
When I feel particularly tired at the end of the day, or when irritability proves that my nerves are tired, I know beyond question that it has been an inefficient day both as to quantity and quality.
- Dale Carnegie
We got so much better so quickly it was hard to believe. We totally stood Kmart off in those small towns of ours. Almost from the beginning, they weren’t very successful at taking our customers away in Jeff City and Poplar Bluff. Once Kmart arrived, we worked even harder at pleasing our customers, and they stayed loyal. This gave us a great surge of confidence in ourselves. But at that time our sales were 5 percent of Kmart’s. (through competition) Wal-Mart has lowered the gross margin in retailing from around 35 percent in the early 60s to only 22 percent today.
- Sam Walton
Don’t wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.This is precisely why you’re stuck. Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning relentlessly for the right way, the best way and the perfect way.The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction. As you start moving, you can’t help but improve, can’t help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.You might not end up with perfect, but it’s significantly more valuable than being stuck.Don’t just start. Continue. Ship. Repeat.
- Seth Godin
When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.
- Walt Disney
We made a disastrous move into casual shoes.
- Phil Knight
It’s hard to make a living when you are in school…
- Michael Dell
Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win — essential to success.
- Napoleon Hill
First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.
- Napoleon Hill
In order to build a great technology company, you have to hire lots of incredibly smart people. It’s a total waste to have lots of big brains but not let them work on your biggest problems. A brain, no matter how big, cannot solve a problem it doesn’t know about.
- Ben Horowitz
The big value of the founder running the company is really two things: the knowledge and the commitment.
- Ben Horowitz
Unwavering courage based upon knowledge of self, and of one’s occupation. No follower wishes to be dominated by a leader who lacks self-confidence and courage. No intelligent follower will be dominated by such a leader very long.
- Napoleon Hill
They must be plans for learning rather than plans for implementation.
- Clayton M. Christensen
As you heat the planet up, it’s just like boiling a pot.
- Elon Musk
That’s one of the nice things. I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich. So if I need $600 million, I can put $600 million myself. That’s a huge advantage. I must tell you, that’s a huge advantage over the other candidates.
- Donald Trump
Become genuinely interested in other people.
- Dale Carnegie
When you live your life in different ways, it makes people around you become uncomfortable. So deal with it. They don’t know what you are going to do.
- Larry Ellison
I am very lucky that I have talented and creative people around me. Also, mediation has been a very big part of my freedom, because it allows me to watch all the things going on and allows me to focus.
- Russell Simmons
Consumers are not loyal to cheap commodities. They crave the unique, the remarkable, and the human.
- Seth Godin
One of the statistics that always amazes me is the approval of the Chinese government, not elected, is over 80 percent. The approval of the U.S. government, fully elected, is 19 percent. Well, we elected these people and they didn’t elect those people. Isn’t it supposed to be different? Aren’t we supposed to like the people that we elected?
- Bill Gates
It’s not always easy to get over some of those bumps in the road, those disillusionments and disappointments. It’s going to take a strong will. Sometimes, it may take courage. Sometimes nothing but faith in God and say, I refuse to be trapped in the past. I’m not going to let the past destroy my future. I’m pressing on. I’m straining forward, knowing that God has great things in store for me.
- Joel Olsteen
Research indicates that employees have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.
- Zig Ziglar
Best wine if you’re stranded on a deserted island? 1982 Salon Champagne.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Comparing Apple to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges, especially if the oranges made so many mistakes that people stopped eating oranges and just went back to Blockbuster.
- Reed Hastings
Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.
- Jack Welch
When you write a program for Android, you use the Oracle Java tools for everything, and at the very end, you push a button and say, ‘Convert this to Android format.’
- Larry Ellison
The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.
- Timothy Ferriss
So great leaders don’t try to please everyone. Great leaders don’t water down their message in order to make the tribe a bit bigger. Instead, they realize that a motivated, connected tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.
- Seth Godin
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
- Thomas Edison
When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for people telling you that you are nuts.
- Larry Ellison
Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.
- Yoda
Believe that you will succeed — and you will.
- Dale Carnegie
Save them [Luke and Leia], we must. They are our last hope.
- Yoda
Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
- Bill Gates
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.
- Winston Churchill
Listening is just as important in one’s home life as in the world of business.
- Dale Carnegie
DAY FOURTEEN I DECLARE that I will use my words to bless people. I will speak favor and victory over my family, friends, and loved ones. I will help call out their seeds of greatness by telling them I’m proud of you, I love you, you are amazing, you are talented, you are beautiful, you will do great things in life.” This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
The single greatest danger for a founder is to become so certain of his own myth that he loses his mind. But an equally insidious danger for every business is to lose all sense of myth and mistake disenchantment for wisdom.
- Peter Thiel
God will not pour fresh, creative ideas and blessing into old attitudes.
- Joel Olsteen
Simon received the Nobel Prize in 1978 for his contribution to organizational decision making: It is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any given time to make a decision.
- Timothy Ferriss
When I jumped off a roof in Cannes in a bee costume, I looked ridiculous. But this is my business; I have to humiliate myself.
- Jerry Seinfeld
The employees who share innovative ideas may also be the folks who have some hidden talents that would help incorporate their suggestions.
- Harvey Mackay
When plans appear into your mind, they will probably flash into your mind through the sixth sense, in the form of an inspiration. This inspiration may be considered a direct telegram, or message from infinite intelligence. Treat it with respect, and act upon it as soon as you receive it. Failure to do this is fatal to your succeess.
- Napoleon Hill
I really good at simplifying things. I think that’s my main strength. Taking something that’s fairly complex down to it’s essence. That’s what I love doing. That’s what I love thinking about.
- Jack Dorsey
The order for the seats amounted to $90,000. Who do you suppose got the order—James Adamson or one of his competitors? From the time of this story until Mr. Eastman’s death.
- Dale Carnegie
A decade and a half ago an ‘Esquire’ magazine reporter, noting our advertising played up the heros as aspects of great atheletes asked the question, who is your hero? My answer was simple. My college track coach and partner, Bill Bowerman. He had won four national championships, coached more sub four minute milers than anyone when he retired. He was the 1972 Olympic coach yet he insisted he was not a track coach. He was a professor of competitive response.
- Phil Knight
When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.
- Winston Churchill
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
When I started working on Southwest Airlines, I kid you not, only people flying on business and very wealthy people ever flew.
- Herb Kelleher
The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurt his sense of importance and arouses resentment.
- Dale Carnegie
We see no major changes in that model for the next several years. In fact, we are more optimistic about Cisco’s position and opportunities in both the enterprise and service provider markets than at any point in the last several years.
- John Chambers
