Background Image

...

Though We May Have Desires Or Bold Goals, For Whatever Reason, Most Of Us Don't Think We Can Achieve Something Beyond What We're Qualified To Achieve. Why, I Ask, Do We Let Reality Interfere With Our Dreams?

-Simon Sinek

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Though We May Have

Simon Sinek

...

Though We May Have Desires Or Bold Goals, For Whatever Reason, Most Of Us Don't Think We Can Achieve Something Beyond What We're Qualified To Achieve. Why, I Ask, Do We Let Reality Interfere With Our Dreams?

Views: 7

Topic

More From Simon Sinek

The Responsibility Of Leadership Is Not To Come Up With All The Ideas But To Create An Environment In Which Great Ideas Can Thrive.

We Must Be Clear About Where We’re Going If We Want Anyone To Help Us Get There.

Leaders Volunteer To Go First Into Danger. Their Willingness To Sacrifice For Us Is The Reason We're Inspired To Follow.

The Strong Bond Of Friendship Is Not Always A Balanced Equation; Friendship Is Not Always About Giving And Taking In Equal Shares. Instead, Friendship Is Grounded In A Feeling That You Know Exactly Who Will Be There For You When You Need Something, No Matter What Or When.

We Should Never Change Our Minds About Where We Are Going, But Always Be Curious About Different Ways To Get There.

I Couldn't Understand Why My Productivity Went Down When I Had Deliberately Made More Time Available To Write. Then I Realized It Was Because I Wasn't Flying As Much.

There's Only One Why. You Only Have One Why, And Your Why Is Fully Formed By The Time You're 17, 18 Or 19years Old, Maybe Even Earlier. The Rest Of Your Life Are Simply Opportunities To Either Live In Or Out Of Balance And The Career Choices We Make And The Decisions We Make In Our Lives Either Put Us In Balance With Our Why, Which Makes Us Happy, Fulfilled And Inspired. Or It Puts Us Out Of Our Why, Which Makes Us Frustrated, Stressed Out And Sometimes We Fail.

Decisions We Make

We Should Never Let Reality Interfere With Our Dreams. Reality Can't See What We Can See.

When My Books Came Out, They Started Selling But They Started Selling At A Relatively Consistent But Low Pace. And They Started To Pick Up The Pace.

There Are Two Types Of Claims: Those Based On Hard Numbers And Those Based On Slippery Numbers.

I Only Have One Why, And My Challenge Is To Make Sure The Things I Say And The Things I Do Remain Consistent For As Often And As Long As Possible.

Disney Is One Of The Best Hotel Companies In The World. Yet They Have Never And Will Never Open A Casino On The Vegas Strip.

The Ones Who Show Up To Take, They Show Up And Say, "hi. My Name Is Steve. I'm An Expert In This And I've Studied This And I've Worked With These Clients." On Every Single Power Point Presentation, It Has Their Email, Their Twitter Handle And Their Facebook Account, So You Can Follow Them. At The End, They Tell You, "please Follow Me." When You Ask Them A Question, They Say, "well, I Could Tell You The Answer, But You Should Really Just Read My Book."

Success Always Takes Help. Failure Is Done Alone.

Most Organizations Only Focus On What They Do And How They Do It - Tactics And Strategies - And They Aren't Even Aware That This Thing Called The Why Exists. Focusing On Only Two Pieces Of A Three Piece Puzzle Leaves An Organization, Or A Career, Inherently Out Of Balance. Being Out Of Balance, Only Operating On Two Of The Three Pieces, Shows Up In Different Ways - Increased Stress, Loss Of Passion, Obsession With What Your Competition Is Doing, Being Forced To Play The Price Game, Trouble Differentiating. These Are All Signs That The Why Is Missing.

Leadership Is A Way Of Thinking, A Way Of Acting And, Most Importantly, A Way Of Communicating.

Changing The World Takes More Than Everything Any One Person Knows, But Not More Than We Know Together.

We Learn Most Not From All Of The Things That Go Right. We Learn Most When Everything Goes Wrong.

There's Nothing Efficient About Innovation.

If You Hire People Just Because They Can Do A Job, They'll Work For Your Money, But If They Believe What You Believe, They'll Work For You With Blood And Sweat And Tears.

My Challenge Is To Make Sure The Things I Say And The Things I Do Remain Consistent For As Often And As Long As Possible. My Why Is To Inspire People To Do The Things That Inspire Them So That Together We Can Change Our World. That's Why I Wake Up Every Single Day. I'm Agnostic To The Form It Takes: I Teach, I Write, I Speak, I Advise.

Together We Can

We Must All Try To Empathize Before We Criticize. Ask Someone What's Wrong Before Telling Them They Are Wrong.

Caring For Others

The Hardest Part Is Starting. Once You Get That Out Of The Way, You'll Find The Rest Of The Journey Much Easier.

Good Leadership Is Always Human. It Takes Time And Energy. It Is Hard Work. Which Is Why Good Leadership Is So Special When We Find It.

The Goal Of Life Is Not To Have Our Lives Mean Something To Ourselves. The Goal Of Life Is To Have Our Lives Mean Something To Others.

The Leaders Who Get The Most Out Of Their People Are The Leaders Who Care Most About Their People.

Innovation Is Not Born From The Dream, Innovation Is Born From The Struggle

Ideas Are Like Dreams; They Will Disappear Unless We Record Them. Write A Book, A Blog, Build A Company, Anything That Makes The Ideas Real.

The True Value Of A Leader Is Not Measured By The Work They Do. A Leader's True Value Is Measured By The Work They Inspire Others To Do.

Let Us Not Attack Those Who Disagree. Let Us Defend Those Who Follow.

I'd Rather Play In The Major Leagues And Have Some Bad Games Than Play Consistently Good Ball In The Minors.

Success Is When Reality Catches Up To Your Imagination.

The Only Time I Waste Is Time I Spend Doing Something That, In My Gut, I Know I Shouldn't. If I Choose To Spend Time Playing Video Games Or Sleeping In, Then It's Time Well Spent, Because I Chose To Do It. I Did It For A Reason - To Relax, To Decompress Or To Feel Good, And That Was What I Wanted To Do.

I'm Interested In The Innovator And The Early Adopter.

The Reason We Grow Up To Be Healthy Adults Is Because Our Parents Played This Game Of Giving Us Responsibility, Disciplining Us When Necessary, Letting Us Try, Letting Us Fail. No Matter What We Know They Are There To Support Us And See Us Do Well. Leaders Are Exactly The Same.

Truly Effective And Inspiring Leaders Aren’t Actually Driven To Lead People; They Are Driven To Serve Them.

If Somebody Wants To Learn Their Why, Either You Help Them Or Send Them Over To Their Course. All Of This Stuff Helps.

Our Vision Is Only Actionable If We Share It. Without Sharing, It’s Just A Figment Of Our Imagination.

I Have Been Inspired By Martin Luther King And How He Inspired A Movement. I Have Learned That A Cause Must Be Organic; If It Is To Have An Impact It Must Belong To Those Who Join The Movement And Not Those Who Lead It.

The Goal Is Not To Be Perfect By The End. The Goal Is To Be Better Today.

Remaining Calm In Times Of Desperation Makes Way For Opportunity.

What I Thought I Developed All Of Those Years Ago Was A Pattern To Understand Communication.

A Boss Who Micromanages Is Like A Coach Who Wants To Get In The Game. Leaders Guide And Support And Then Sit Back To Cheer From The Sidelines.

The Reality Is That Fulfillment, Success And All Of These Good Things Comes From Trying To Help Those That We Care About To Achieve Those Things. How Can I Help Somebody I Care About Find The Job They Love? How Can I Help Somebody I Care About Find Happiness In Their Work? And When We Commit To Service It Actually Biologically And Anthropologically Is More Likely To Lead To Our Own Success And Our Own Happiness.

Focus On Long Term Success But Be Willing To Make Short Term Adjustments To Get There

Never Opt For Change Simply To Leave Something You Don't Like. Change Works Best When You Go Toward Something, Even If It Is The Unknown.

Reality Will Always Prevail So Why Help It? Be An Idealist And See What Happens.

We Should Invest In People Not Ideas. A Good Idea Is Often Destroyed By Bad People And Good People Can Always Make A Bad Idea Better.

We Can't All Be Good At Everything. This Is Partly The Logic Behind Having A Team In The First Place, So Each Role Can Be Filled With The Person Best Suited For That Role And Together, Every Job And Every Strength Is Covered.

If You Go To The Gym And You Come Home And Look Into The Mirror, You'll See Nothing. If You Go The Next Day And You Come Home, You Will See Nothing. In Fact Sometimes You're In Pain.

There Is No Decision That We Can Make That Doesn't Come With Some Sort Of Balance Or Sacrifice.

Those Who Fear The New Are The Ones Who Have Mastered The Old.

Leaders Don't Convince People To Follow Them. Leaders Walk Forward Alone And Those Who Want To Go Down Their Path Decide To Follow.

The True Value Of Networking Doesn't Come From How Many People We Can Meet But Rather How Many People We Can Introduce To Others.

Success Comes When We Wake Up Every Day In That Never-ending Pursuit Of Why We Do What We Do.

Why We Do What We Do

A Leader Must Be Inspired By The People Before A Leader Can Inspire The People.

Entrepreneurs Must Be Practical Experts. They Needn't Set Out To Be Subject Matter Experts In What They Do; They Must Set Out To Solve A Problem Or Pursue Some Cause Or Purpose Greater Than Themselves.

I'm Investing In Myself, I'm Investing In Others And I'm Investing In My Cause. I Know If I Persist It Will Pay Back In Dividends And It Always Does.

I Was Never A Writer.

Our Courage Comes From The Courage Of Others.

If We Were Good At Everything We Would Have No Need For Each Other.

We Need Each Other

Inspire People To Do The Things That Inspire Them And, Together, We Can Change Our World.

Together We Can

The Creatives Are Rarely Professional And The Professionals Are Rarely Creative.

Start With Why. And Work Really Hard To Make Sure You're Consistent.

For Values Or Guiding Principles To Be Truly Effective They Have To Be Verbs. It's Not "integrity," It's "always Do The Right Thing." It's Not "innovation," It's "look At The Problem From A Different Angle." Articulating Our Values As Verbs Gives Us A Clear Idea - We Have A Clear Idea Of How To Act In Any Situation.

Guiding Principles

Bad Leaders Care About Who Is Right. Good Leaders Care About What Is Right

If I Walk Into A Room Of 500 People, My Standard Is, If I Can't Give 400 Or 450 Of You Something, A Language Or A New Way Of Seeing Something, Then I Have Failed. If I Get 100 Of You, I Am A Failure. I Have To Get A Majority.

Though We May Have Desires Or Bold Goals, For Whatever Reason, Most Of Us Don't Think We Can Achieve Something Beyond What We're Qualified To Achieve. Why, I Ask, Do We Let Reality Interfere With Our Dreams?

If We Care About The Average Working American, Then Wal-mart Matters. A Lot.

Directions Are Instructions Given To Explain How. Direction Is A Vision Offered To Explain Why.

A Movement Only Exists When People Are Inspired To Move, To Do Something, To Make The Cause Their Own.

Academic Experts May Not Be Good At Doing What They Are Experts In Themselves, But They Are Good At Explaining The Subject Matter To Others. They Write Books, Teach Courses And Offer Lessons And Give Steps Others Can Follow.

There Is A Difference Between Running With All Your Heart With Your Eyes Closed And Running With All Your Heart With Your Eyes Wide Open.

I'm Interested In The Left Side Of The Bell Curve.

I Have Friends Who Are Majorly Into The Cosplay Culture And Have Urged Me To Go To A Convention For No Other Reason Than To Meet Others Like Me.

If You Sell What You Do, You're A Vendor. If You Sell Why You Do It, You're A Brand.

Leadership Is A Choice To Protect The Person To The Left Of Us, And Protect The Person To The Right Of Us, And Sometimes That May Come At A Cost. It May Cost Us Our Benefits, It May Cost Us Our Comfort, It May Sometimes Cost Us Our Perks, Whatever It Is, Credit.

Pursue The Thing Inside Us And Others Will Help Us. Pursue The Things Outside Us And Others Will Compete With Us.

True Love Exists In Business. It's When Employee And Employer Are Amazingly Grateful To Have Each Other. We Should All Have True Love At Work.

Fight Against Something And You Focus On The Thing You Hate. Fight For Something And You Focus On The Thing You Love.

The Single Best Machine To Measure Trust Is A Human Being. We Haven't Figured Out A Metric That Works Better Than Our Own Sort Of, Like, 'there's Something Fishy About You.'

The Ad Industry Thinks Their Clients Are Their Customers. They Think The Companies Who Pay For The Production Are The Ones They Are Supposed To Serve. So The Ads They Produce Make Their Clients Happy... But Infuriate The Rest Of Us.

When I Present, I Cheat. I Only Talk About Things I Care About.

The Goal Is Not Simply To 'work Hard, Play Hard.' The Goal Is To Make Our Work And Our Play Indistinguishab Le.

Value Is A Perception Not A Calculation. Value Is Something People Feel, Not Something We Tell Them They Get

People Don't Buy What You Do; They Buy What You Stand For.

Great Marketing

Progress And Innovation Happen When You Set Unrealistic Goals.

You Have To Have A Patience For Exercise.

Focus On Where You're Going And You'll Know What Steps To Take. Focus On The Steps You're Taking And You Won't Know Where You're Going.

I Know If I Persist It Will Pay Back In Dividends And It Always Does. What Starts To Happen Is Like Exercise, The Pain Goes Away. It Starts To Get Easier And The Weight Starts To Get Lighter And People Start To Notice A Difference In You And You Start To Notice A Difference In Yourself. You Find Your Ability To Make Decisions Is Easier; You Find You Are Inspired More Often. You Find Your Success Increases. You Find That Your Random Moments When You're In The Flow Are No Longer Random And You Can Control Them. Other People Notice The Difference.

Bad Leaders Believe That They Have To Project Control At All Times.

The Goal Is Not To Do Business With Everybody Who Needs What You Have. The Goal Is To Do Business With People Who Believe What You Believe.

If Everything Goes Right, We Get A Good Experience. If Everything Goes Wrong, We Get A Good Story.

Good Experiences

If You Look At The Average Age Of A Company On The Dow Jones Index, It's Something Like 35 Years Or Younger. In Other Words... Success Is No Indication Of Longevity.

Organizations Should Say And Do The Things They Actually Believe.

If You Help One Person In The Room, You're An Abject Failure. You Have To Change Something.

I Never Imagined I'd Write A Book.

Every Company Knows What They Do Some Know How They Do It Very Few Know Why

Life Is Beautiful Not Because Of The Things We See Or Do. Life Is Beautiful Because Of The People We Meet.

Life Is Beautiful

When I Was In College, My School Newspaper Accepted An Ad From A Holocaust Revisionist Organization. This Would Have Been Offensive On Most College Campuses Across The Country, But I Went To A School With A Very Large Jewish Population, So The Ad, As You Might Expect, Stirred Absolute Outrage.

Simple Ideas Are Easier To Understand. Ideas That Are Easier To Understand Are Repeated. Ideas That Are Repeated Change The World.

You Have To Write A Book Because You Believe It Has Helped You, Because You Believe It Has Helped Others Personally And You Are Dying To Share With It Others Because You Know It Will Add Value To Their Lives. You Write It For Them Like A Gift. You Don't Want Anything From Them. You Don't Want Them To Do Anything For You. You Don't Even Care If They All Share The Book With Their Friends, They Don't All Have To Buy Them. You're Just Dying To Share This Idea With People. Your Challenge Is To Write It In A Way That Is Compelling, Enjoyable To Read So That They Will Get The Idea.

Great Leaders Are Willing To Sacrifice The Numbers To Save The People. Poor Leaders Sacrifice The People To Save The Numbers.

Great Leaders Don’t Try To Be Perfect. They Try To Be Themselves. And That’s What Makes Them Great.

Multi-millionaires Who Pay Half Or Less Than Half Of The Percentage Of Tax The Rest Of Us Pay Justify Their Actions By Saying They Pay What The Law Requires. Though True, The Fact Is They Found Ways Within The Law To Beat The Purpose Of The Law - Which, In The Case Of Taxes, Is That We All Pay Our Fair Share.

Mergers Are Like Marriages. They Are The Bringing Together Of Two Individuals. If You Wouldn't Marry Someone For The 'operational Efficiencies' They Offer In The Running Of A Household, Then Why Would You Combine Two Companies With Unique Cultures And Identities For That Reason?

When We Have A Clear Sense Of Our Destination, We Can Be Flexible In The Route We Take To Reach It.

My Sister Made Certain Choices About The Life She Wanted. Those Choices Include A Steady Job, A Husband And Children. But Balance And Stability Come At A Cost. It Is Harder For Her To Be Spontaneous. It Is Harder To Just Up And Leave.

The Goal Of Business Should Not Be To Do Business With Anyone Who Simply Wants What You Have. It Should Be To Focus On The People Who Believe What You Believe. When We Are Selective About Doing Business Only With Those Who Believe In Our Why, Trust Emerges.

The Most Important Thing To Do Before You Die Is Live.

The Quality Of A Leader Cannot Be Judged By The Answers He Gives, But By The Questions He Asks.

There Is A Difference Between Giving Directions And Giving Direction.

Giving Directions

The People Who Say,"what Guarantee Do I Have?" I Walk Away. I'll Get You Later.

How Can You Help The Human Race Progress?

If You're Going To Undertake Any Project, Like A Book, You Have To Show Up To Give.

Authorities Act With Themselves In Mind. Leaders Act With Others In Mind. Authorities Take. Leaders Give. Authorities Die. Leaders Live On.

People Will Do As They Are Told By Someone Who Outranks Them, But They Will Only Follow Someone They Believe In.

A Parent Does Not Do Everything For Their Kid. A Parent That Does Everything For Their Kid Produces A Kid With No Self-confidence. If Our Parents Fixed Everything For Us And Did Not Allow Us To Do Anything On Our Own, Or Intervened Every Single Time, We Would All Grow Up To Be Completely Dependent. The Reason We Grow Up To Be Healthy Adults Is Because Our Parents Played This Game Of Giving Us Responsibility, Disciplining Us When Necessary, Letting Us Try, Letting Us Fail.

It Is A Luxury To Put Our Interests First. It Is An Honor To Put The Interests Of Others Before Our Own.

Trust Is Maintained When Values And Beliefs Are Actively Managed. If Companies Do Not Actively Work To Keep Clarity, Discipline And Consistency In Balance, Then Trust Starts To Break Down.

Anyone Who Achieves Any Kind Of Success, However You Want To Define It, Sometimes Can't Let Go Of It.

There Are Only Two Ways To Influence Human Behavior: You Can Manipulate It Or You Can Inspire It.

In The Military, They Give Medals For People Who Are Willing To Sacrifice Themselves So That Others May Survive. In Business, We Give Bonuses To People Who Sacrifice Others.

When We Are Selective About Doing Business Only With Those Who Believe In Our Why, Trust Emerges.

No One Knows Everything. But Together, We Know A Whole Lot.

A Parent Does Not Do Everything For Their Kid. A Parent That Does Everything For Their Kid Produces A Kid With No Self-confidence.

Self Confidence

All These Companies That Grew To Any Sizable Proportions Were All Founded With A Belief Or A Cause Bigger Than Their Products Or Services. It Was Their Products Or Services That Helped Them Bring That Cause To Life.

Leadership Is About Pointing In The Direction, Articulating A Vision Of The World That Does Not Yet Exist. Then Asking Help From Others To Insure That Vision Happens.

The Courage Of Leadership Is Giving Others The Chance To Succeed Even Though You Bear The Responsibility For Getting Things Done.

The Value Of Our Lives Is Not Determined By What We Do For Ourselves. The Value Of Our Lives Is Determined By What We Do For Others.

No Matter How Many Or How Few People You Have Reporting To You, You Must Remember That As You Climb Higher In The Ranks, Your Words Will Be Taken As Commands Even If You're Just Thinking Out Loud.

The Rank Of Office Is Not What Makes Someone A Leader. Leadership Is The Choice To Serve Others With Or Without Any Formal Rank.

Believing That Your Competition Is Stronger And Better Than You Pushes You To Better Yourselves.

When We Can Communicate From The Inside Out, We're Talking Directly To The Part Of The Brain That Controls Behavior, And Then We Allow People To Rationalize It With The Tangible Things We Say And Do. This Is Where Gut Decisions Come From.

When We Help Ourselves, We Find Moments Of Happiness. When We Help Others, We Find Lasting Fulfillment.

Managers Watch Over Our Numbers, Our Time And Our Results. Leaders Watch Over Us.

To Become An Academic Expert Takes Years Of Studying. Academic Experts Are Experts In How And What Others Have Done. They Use Case Studies And Observation To Understand A Subject.

Vision Is A Destination - A Fixed Point To Which We Focus All Effort. Strategy Is A Route - An Adaptable Path To Get Us Where We Want To Go.

I Would Never Find Myself Or Unlikely To Find Myself In A Room Where I Have A Skeptic Who Brought Me In. But I Very Often Am In A Situation Somebody Who's There Who Didn't Invite Me Was A Skeptic. That Happens All The Time.

Listening Is Not Understanding The Words Of The Question Asked, Listening Is Understanding Why The Question Was Asked In The First Place.

Nike Doesn't Want To Make Products For Everyone - They Want To Make Products For Champions.

The Value Of Experimentation Is Not The Trying. It's The Trying Again After The Experiment Fails.

We Are All So Preoccupied With Ourselves. How Can I Get Happy, How Can I Find The Job I Love, How Can I Become A Millionaire, How Can Lose Weight. Yet, The Reality Is That Fulfillment, Success And All Of These Good Things Comes From Trying To Help Those That We Care About To Achieve Those Things.

More Often Than Not When We Do Not Like Our Work, It's Not Necessarily Because Of The Work Itself. But More Often Because Of The People We Work With And More Importantly Because Of The Lack Of Leadership. It Is Amazing How Inspired And Motivated We Can Be When We Like The People And When We Feel Like We Show Up To Work Because Our Leaders Care About Our Wellbeing. It Is Kind Of Incredible Actually.

A Good Leader Takes Care Of Those In Their Charge. A Bad Leader Takes Charge Of Those In Their Care.

When We Accept The Fact That We Can't Do Everything, We Are More Willing To Ask For And Accept Help When We Do Anything.

When Leaders Care Less About Their People, Their People Will Be Careless.

Spending Too Much Time Focused On Others' Strengths Leaves Us Feeling Weak. Focusing On Our Own Strengths Is What, In Fact, Makes Us Strong.

If You Have The Opportunity To Do Amazing Things In Your Life, I Strongly Encourage You To Invite Someone To Join You.

I Never Imagined Working With Ceos, Congressmen Or The Military, Yet I Make Regular Visits To The Pentagon, Stop By The Capitol Now And Then And Sit Down With Leaders Of All Kinds Of Companies.

Leadership Is Neither A Rank Nor A Title. It Is A Choice. The Choice To Provide Care And Protection For Those For Whom We Are Responsible.

When Or If We "quote, Unquote" Do Not Like Our Work, It Is Probably Because We Do Not Feel Safe Where We Go To Work. So When You Say, What Can We Do?, The Irony Is That The Best Thing We Can Do Is, Well One Option, Is To Quit.

Focus On Money And We Will Make Money. Focus On Impact And We Will Make An Impact.

What Good Is An Idea If It Remains An Idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try Again. Change The World.

There Is A Difference Between Listening And Waiting For Your Turn To Speak.

I Don't Care About Convincing The People Who Think I'm Naive Or An Idiot.

Intelligence Looks For What Is Known To Solve Problems. Creativity Looks For What Is Unknown To Discover Possibilities.

The Bad Leaders Are The Ones That Push Hard So They Can Gain, Who Brow Beat Us So That They Can Receive The Benefit Of Our Hard Work, Not So We Can Enjoy The Success

The U.s. Constitution Protects Our Privacy From The Prying Eyes Of Government. It Does Not, However, Protect Us From The Prying Eyes Of Companies And Corporations.

Quality Effective Leaders Have The Confidence To Trust Others To Try, Succeed, And Sometimes To Fail. We Very Often Confuse Personality With Leadership. In Other Words, Leadership Is Not About Being A Nice Person Or Not A Nice Person.

Leadership Is Not Achieved By An Individual. Leadership Is Bestowed By The Group.

Remember To Connect With People Now And Then. In Fact, Pick Up The Phone, Right Now, And Call A Friend For No Other Reason Than To Say Hi.

If Our Leaders Are To Enjoy The Trappings Of Their Position In The Hierarchy, Then We Expect Them To Offer Us Protection. The Problem Is, For Many Of The Overpaid Leaders, We Know That They Took The Money And Perks And Didn’t Offer Protection To Their People. In Some Cases, They Even Sacrificed Their People To Protect Or Boost Their Own Interests. This Is What So Viscerally Offends Us. We Only Accuse Them Of Greed And Excess When We Feel They Have Violated The Very Definition Of What It Means To Be A Leader.

A Team Is Not A Group Of People That Work Together. A Team Is A Group Of People That Trust Each Other.

To Succeed Takes More Than The Desire To Win. It Also Takes The Acceptance That We Could Fail.

Confidence Is Believing In Yourself. Arrogance Is Telling Others Youre Better Than They Are. Confidence Inspires. Arrogance Destroys.

Money Is A Short-term Result That Incentivizes Short-term Decision Making.

If You Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand Business.

Your Work Is Your Own Private Megaphone To Tell The World What You Believe.

When People Are Financially Invested, They Want A Return. When People Are Emotionally Invested, They Want To Contribute.

Very Few People Or Companies Can Clearly Articulate Why They Do What They Do. By Why I Mean Your Purpose, Cause Or Belief - Why Does Your Company Exist? Why Do You Get Out Of Bed Every Morning? And Why Should Anyone Care?

When We Point To Obstacles We Inhibit Progress. When We Offer Solutions We Advance.

Stories Are Attempts To Share Our Values And Beliefs. Storytelling Is Worthwhile When It Tells What We Stand For.

Hire People Inspired To Achieve Something Big Over People Who Demand Something Big Before They Feel Inspired.

Safe Is Good For Sidewalks And Swimming Pools, But Life Requires Risk If We Are To Get Anywhere.

Vision Is The Ability To Talk About The Future With Such Clarity It Is As If We Are Talking About The Past.

Leadership Is Not About The Next Election, It's About The Next Generation.

When You Show Up To Speak Publically, You Have To Show Up To Give. You Always Know The Ones Who Do And The Ones Who Don't.

The New Is Threatening To Those Who Have Mastered The Old.

Trust Doesn't Develop From Always Doing The Right Thing. Trust Comes From Taking Responsibility When We Do The Wrong Thing.

Doing The Right Thing

Wal-mart's Size And Scale Is So Vast They Literally Have The Ability To Change The Face Of The Entire Country. If Wal-mart Were To Make A Decision Tomorrow To Refuse To Sell A Single Product Made With Partially Hydrogenated Oils, For Example, We'd Probably See Rates From Heart Disease Decline A Few Years Later. That's How Powerful Wal-mart Is.

Leadership Is Like Exercise. Do It Everyday, The Results Take Time But You Will See Them. It's The Little Things.

Communication Is Not About Speaking What We Think. Communication Is About Ensuring Others Hear What We Mean.

I Find, When You're An Optimist, Life Has A Funny Way Of Looking After You.

The Trick To Balance Is To Not Make Sacrificing Important Things Become The Norm.

I Don't Have To Convince Everybody In The Room. I Just Need A Critical Mass Of The People In The Room.

Great Leaders Don't See Themselves As Great; They See Themselves As Human.

Some Good Leaders Are Rough Around The Edges And Some Leaders Are Difficult. Some Have Difficult Personalities And Some Are Really Nice To Be Around, But Those Are Not The Qualifications. The Qualifications Are Their Desire To See Us Achieve More, Their Desire To Push Us To Be The Best We Can Be. Not For Their Selfish Gain, But Because They Believe That We Have Something To Offer.

All The Great Organizations In The World, All Have A Sense Of Why That Organization Does What It Does.

What You Do Is Proof Of What You Believe.

Because A True Sense Of Purpose Is Deeply Emotional, It Serves As A Compass To Guide Us To Act In A Way Completely Consistent With Our Values And Beliefs. Purpose Does Not Need To Involve Calculations Or Numbers. Purpose Is About The Quality Of Life. Purpose Is Human, Not Economic.

It's Better To Do It Than To Talk About How Perfect It Could Be.

When You Explain To People What You're Trying To Do, As Opposed To Just Making Demands Or Delegating Tasks, You Can Build Instant Trust, Even If It's Just For That Short Time You're On The Phone.

We Don't Learn Much When Everything Goes Right. We Learn The Most When Things Go Wrong.

When Things Go Wrong

A Leader Without A Title Is Better Than A Title Without The Ability To Lead.

The Next Time Someone Starts Listing All The Reasons An Idea Won't Work Or Can't Happen, Ask Them To Give 3 Reasons It Can.

I'm Pretty Confident The Why Works Now. When It First Began, Somebody Said To Me: "will This Work In Big Business?" I Said, "i Don't Know. Let's Try." Somebody Said Will This Work In Entrepreneurs, Relationships Or Government And Military. I Said, "i Don't Know. Let's Try." I Kept Applying The Scientific Method. I Had A Theory. I Kept Applying That Theory, Looking For Opportunities To Fail And It Kept Working.

Studies Show That Over 80 Percent Of Americans Do Not Have Their Dream Job. If More Knew How To Build Organizations That Inspire, We Could Live In A World In Which That Statistic Was The Reverse - A World In Which Over 80 Percent Of People Loved Their Jobs. People Who Love Going To Work Are More Productive And More Creative. They Go Home Happier And Have Happier Families. They Treat Their Colleagues And Clients And Customers Better. Inspired Employees Make For Stronger Companies And Stronger Economies.

Poor Leaders Push Us Towards The Goal. Great Leaders Guide Us Through The Journey.

We All Have The Luxury Of Looking Out For Ourselves. Leaders Also Have The Honor Of Looking Out For Others.

Trending Author

Elizabeth Bowen

Theodore Dalrymple

Category