Categories:
- Rallying the Team
- Personal Success
- Thoughts on Innovation
- Overcoming Challenges
- Conquering Fear
- Dealing with Failure
- Ins and Outs of Entrepreneurship
Conquering Fear
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
If I’m the smartest guy in the room, I’m in the wrong room.
Design is an agent of change, which can help us to make sense of what is happening and to turn it to our advantage.
If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.
If you can’t stand the heat, don’t tickle the dragon.
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
It’s so much easier to do something new than to do something well.
When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.
I don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I just try to change the spokes.
Never judge the characters you play… That’s the first rule of acting.
To understand a company, spend time with its customers.
Be careful – a little success can create a whole lot of overhead.
About right now is better than exactly wrong later.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
Success is easy if you think of it like rust: It’s inevitable if you keep at it.
If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.
The fact that others are bad does not imply that you are good.
Make sure that the best thing to happen to your customer today is you.
There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.
It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.
You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I will ruin you.
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
Being early and being wrong are sometimes not that different.
Storms make trees take deeper roots.
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.
We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
If a ruler’s anger rises against you, do not leave your post; calmness can lay great offenses to rest.
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
You can’t really run the company by pissing off the scientists who do the work.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss in enthusiasm.
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
He that can’t endure the bad will not live to see the good.
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.
Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the entrepreneur adjusts the sails.
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.
Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
If you presume, you are putting ‘P’ on your resume.
Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent.
With Early Stage companies, it’s never one thing. It’s always one thing after another.
If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.
With good people, you can do anything. With bad people, nothing helps.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.
Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
Creativity is great – but not in accounting.
There is great power in ignorance and naivete.
Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.
There’s no fun like work.
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!
I believe that smart people working hard will eventually get lucky.
There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.
You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can.
Partners don’t pay each other, they help each other get paid.
Entrepreneurship exists in the tiny space between madness and genius; and, its journey requires a few cross border violations across both madness and genius to get to the final destination.
The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.
We’re not trying to entertain the critics… I’ll take my chances with the public.
Focus on doing things that can’t hurt and might help. You’ll always be ahead.
Half of the lies they tell about me aren’t true.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
Having money is no reason to spend it.
It’s nice to be nominated but it’s better to win.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I don’t have a lot of regrets.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you’re scared to death.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
Dad always used to say, ‘Tell me a fact, and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth, and I’ll believe. But tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.’
In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning in indispensable.
I don’t know what the price is, but the price knows what the price is.
Life is just one damned thing after another.
Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.
Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible.
Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about full speech because you have nothing to say.
I see the light when I feel the heat.
By the time you get really good at this, you’ll be dead!
Too many kings can ruin an army.
Simplicity is a virtue.
The meek shall inherit the earth – but not its mineral rights.
We was doin’ good till we blowed up!
The root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
Profit gives us resources.
A smooth sea never made for a skillful sailor.
A leader’s job is to have all the questions. You have to be incredibly comfortable looking like the dumbest person in the room.
If you don’t have a business, what do you do for aggravation?
Try your best to make goodness attractive.
The impossible missions are the only ones that succeed.
Change before you have to.
Learn to sell and you will never starve.
The job of tech transfer manager is to make something happen – without getting fired.
One of the hardest truths for any technologist to hear is that success or failure in business is rarely determined by the quality of the technology.
Adult humans are only a little more rational than five-year-olds.
First, they ignore you. Then, they laugh at you. Then, they fight you. Then, you win.
The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘We’ve always done it this way.’
You can never complete the work, nor must you abandon it.
The simplest explanation is always the most likely.
I don’t want a lawyer who tells me what I can’t do. I hire a lawyer to tell me how to do what I want to do!
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
I would rather fail at something I love than succeed at something I hate.
By and large the citizens are proud of their great orchestra; and by and large, the citizens have never heard it.
Until we have an exit, we Angel investors are just donors.
There’s no business not like show business.
More important than what disease the person has is what person has the disease.
Start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you.
The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
I don’t like investors. When you take money, you’re typically setting the stage to get out. It’s about multiples and math at that point. It’s not about product. It’s not about customers. It’s just about growth. And that, to me, is a perverted sense of what business is about. Business to me is about making something great, treating your employee’s great, treating your customer’s great, adding something good to the world that wasn’t there before.
Retail is detail.
Religion either leads to a deeper reflection or a greater certainty.
Accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles.
Panic is not a strategy.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Angels who won’t conduct postmortems climb the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
Entrepreneurs’ genius is the gold in the mine; angels are miners helping to extract it; VCs are claim jumpers.
Art is not optional, not decorative landscaping in front of the castle of civilization. It is no more or less important than philosophy, religion, economics, or psychology.
Knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity. Our very survival may hinge upon it.
Too little confidence, and you’re unable to act; too much confidence, and you’re unable to hear.
Raising your first VC round can be like bobbing for piranhas.
I did not always think he was right, nor did he always think I was right. But we were each the person the other trusted.
History has shown that incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge established ways and, in the process, lose focus on what matters most: customers. Customers always win.
If you take comfort in anti-dilution clauses you probably believe in lifetime guarantees.
Problems don’t age well.
People fire themselves.
I worship entrepreneurs. They do more than anyone thinks is possible – with less than anyone thinks is possible.
Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
If you have perfect customer analytics, you will know how to find people who look like your current customer. But if you focus only on them, you will never get any new business.
After you ask a closing question, SHUT UP! The next person who speaks loses.
Working a little harder to keep a customer now is a lot smarter than working a lot harder later to get a new customer.
Interesting, if true.
Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget.
For some entrepreneurs it’s better to be never than late.
The darkest nights produce the brightest stars.
Don’t give up on your dream, but have a backup dream.
Your faith needs to be greater than your fear.
Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.
Proving it will be a homerun ahead of the swing is impossible! You have to try for a hit first and sometimes it turns into a homerun.
Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.
People will remember stories long after they have forgotten your bullet points.
If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.
Respect everyone, fear no one.
Expedite the inevitable.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
In my next life, I will try to commit more errors.
The seven smartest words in the English language are: ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’
Give someone a book, they’ll read if for a day. Teach someone how to write a book and they’ll experience a lifetime of paralyzing self-doubt.
It’s one thing to be wrong about the valuation. It’s another to be wrong about the business model.
There’s no decision you should ever make that would embarrass you if it became public.
Can you teach me to believe?
Someone needs to do something about this.
Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.
We’re imperfect people pursuing perfect ideas and there’s tremendous frustration in the gap.
There is living and dying. There is no retirement.
We’re not funding Mother Teresa. We’re funding imperial, will-to-power people who want to crush their competition.
You can’t let your past hold your future hostage.
The first person you lead is you.
Every time I look at my yacht, I think of the 30X exits on one of my investments. I don’t have a yacht.
My advice on firing is simple. Treat that person the same way you’d want to be treated if you were in that situation. They’re still a good person, just not the right fit.
Integrity is a binary state. You either have it or you don’t
The rational and the irrational complement each other. Individually, they are far less valuable.
Not knowing what you’re doing has nothing to do with where you’re going.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open sewer and die.
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.
It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
The harder I work, the luckier I get!
Why should I worry about dying? It’s not going to happen in my lifetime.
Politicians are the same everywhere. They promise to build a bridge even when there’s no river.
No one ever confines a secret to one person only. No one destroys all copies of a document.
Anything can happen, but it usually doesn’t.
Long as the night will be, the sun will rise without you.
The universe is basically an animal that grazes on the ordinary. It creates infinite idiots just to eat them.
If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.
Whatever people … do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike.
Listening to advice often accomplishes far more than heeding it.
A goal is a dream with a deadline.
Fear is an excellent motivator. I find that it really brings out the true ingenuity of a creature.
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
The old definition of leadership is ‘look at me, I’m a leader.’ But the new definition should be ‘No, actually, look at you – I’m listening.’
There are two ways to be the most important guy in town. One is to have all the money. The other is to give all the money.
All you need is faith, trust and pixie dust!
You can’t demand a withdrawal from someone you have not invested in.
You can’t talk yourself out of a problem you’ve behaved yourself into. You must behave yourself out!
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It may be a different age, but I’m on the same page. ‘Cause one thing I’ve found. I still be digging on James Brown.
Every day is a flaming toboggan ride.
There’s a price to pay for the price you pay.
The best sales professionals are experts in and advocates for their buyers. They won’t represent companies they don’t believe in. They won’t get on a call without being prepared to make the most of their and their prospect’s time. They know how to leverage every technology, colleague and contact to augment their skills in order to produce optimal outcomes. They welcome coaching, exercise discipline with their time, do their homework and win for the team. They are true athletes.
Red meat is not bad for you. Now, blue-green meat? That’s bad for you!
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
You cannot control cattle at a high rate of speed. They have the capacity to tire out and just stand there, and they will not move. Slow is fast – cattle don’t wear a wristwatch.
I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
If you‘re the smartest person in the room, you haven’t hired well.
Let’s go invest tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.
Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.
You don’t go broke making small profits.
Big companies are amazing at coming up with reasons not to do things.
We live to learn.
The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first.
If it doesn’t scare you, you’re probably not dreaming big enough.
Decide what your [company] purpose is and write it down. That way, you won’t lie to yourself.
If you are batting 1,000, you are playing in the Little Leagues.
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
If you never retire, you will never expire.
The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.
Things are never going to turn out the way you think they will.
When you need money, go ask for advice. When you need advice, go ask for money.
I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time, I am right.
The biggest thing about negotiating: You’ve got to make sure you’re trying to construct a good deal for them.
Elon cares a lot about humanity, but he doesn’t really care about individual people all that much.
I am not a fan of lost causes. But a … of causes not yet won.
Take my factories and my money but leave me my salesmen and I’ll be back where I was in two years.
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
The customer of my customer is my customer.
People have a historical memory that goes back to breakfast.
Beer isproof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
A fish doesn’t know it’s wet.
It’s not success you want to be remembered for, but significance.
Trust your mistakes.
I often tell would-be entrepreneurs that you have to be a little crazy or even masochistic to choose this life. The energy, endurance, optimism and just plain thick skin required aren’t for the faint of heart.
I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present.
If you are going to doubt something, doubt your limits.
Wealth is not about having a lot of money. It’s about having a lot of options.
Possessions are a way of turning money into problems.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
All of Wendy’s spins off one fresh word – FRESH
I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead.
We had a quote over the door that read, ‘Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.’
