Categories:
- Dealing with Failure
- Ins and Outs of Entrepreneurship
- Overcoming Challenges
- Personal Success
- Rallying the Team
- Thoughts on Innovation
- Conquering Fear
Overcoming Challenges
Knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity. Our very survival may hinge upon it.
The first 98% of the engineering design takes 98% of the time. The remaining 2% of the design work takes the other 98% of the time.
Accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles.
Let’s go invest tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.
The root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
Try your best to make goodness attractive.
Your faith needs to be greater than your fear.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
We was doin’ good till we blowed up!
We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
An expert is [somebody] who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
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.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
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.
Complaining is not a strategy.
Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.
Make space for the new mistakes.
We were given some great advice early on: Strategy is what you don’t do. Whenever we do anything, we ask ourselves, ‘Is this true to Warby Parker?’
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half.
It is very hard to find any evidence which shows that a focus on maximizing shareholder value actually maximizes shareholder value.
Advertising is art serving capitalism.
The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
Start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you.
Great advertising can make food taste better, can make your car run smoother.
Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.
There’s no decision you should ever make that would embarrass you if it became public.
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!
If I knew what I was going to do next, I wouldn’t do it.
Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.
In my next life, I will try to commit more errors.
A joint venture is two parties in the same bed with different dreams.
Teach thy tongue to say: ‘I do not know.’
Organizations resist innovation because people are more comfortable with what they know than what they don’t.
The darkest nights produce the brightest stars.
Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
The first person you lead is you.
A goal is a dream with a deadline.
What got you here won’t get you there.
I worship entrepreneurs. They do more than anyone thinks is possible – with less than anyone thinks is possible.
If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
Problems don’t age well.
Long as the night will be, the sun will rise without you.
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.
There are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks where decades happen.
Decide what your [company] purpose is and write it down. That way, you won’t lie to yourself.
Expedite the inevitable.
The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first.
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.
Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment.
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optimist sees the glass as half full. The engineer sees the glass as twice the size it needs to be.
The harder I work, the luckier I get!
Respect everyone, fear no one.
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.
A leader’s job is to have all the questions. You have to be incredibly comfortable looking like the dumbest person in the room.
The future is like a Japanese game show. You have no idea what’s going on.
A smooth sea never made for a skillful sailor.
In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I don’t have a lot of regrets.
The four most important words in business are ‘What do you think?’
You can’t let your past hold your future hostage.
The job of tech transfer manager is to make something happen – without getting fired.
Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
The only thing worse than a big flop is a small success.
It’s nice to be nominated but it’s better to win.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you’re scared to death.
If everything is important, then nothing is.
Change before you have to.
Learn to sell and you will never starve.
If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.
Choice is the enemy of decision.
The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.
Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, and abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.
History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Panic is not a strategy.
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.
We’re not funding Mother Teresa. We’re funding imperial, will-to-power people who want to crush their competition.
Religion either leads to a deeper reflection or a greater certainty.
You don’t give people what they want. You give them what they don’t yet know they want.
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.
Looking forward, people need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Face-to-face contact will give you the edge over your competitors every time.
Politicians are the same everywhere. They promise to build a bridge even when there’s no river.
To do a common thing, uncommonly well, brings success.
The impossible missions are the only ones that succeed.
Raising your first VC round can be like bobbing for piranhas.
When assessing ‘first mover advantage’ remember that mousetraps demonstrate the wisdom of being the second mouse.
Leaders define reality and provide hope.
Too little confidence, and you’re unable to act; too much confidence, and you’re unable to hear.
If you don’t have a business, what do you do for aggravation?
Purpose is not the sole pursuit of profits, but the animating force for achieving them.
Innovation often originates outside existing organizations, in part because successful organizations acquire a commitment to the status quo and a resistance to ideas that might change it.
Big companies are amazing at coming up with reasons not to do things.
Trying to come up with a great idea is not a great idea. Go for quantity over quality.
Angels who won’t conduct postmortems climb the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
I don’t know what the price is, but the price knows what the price is.
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.
No amount of advertising can force any large number of people to buy things they do not want. Advertising can only create a new market for products which fill a genuine – though often unexpressed or latent – consumer want.
This way to the egress.
Fear is an excellent motivator. I find that it really brings out the true ingenuity of a creature.
Don’t give up on your dream, but have a backup dream.
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.
Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.
More is more.
Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency.
When you’re through changing, you’re through.
You can fool all the people all of the time – if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.
I would rather fail at something I love than succeed at something I hate.
The seven smartest words in the English language are: ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’
Listening to advice often accomplishes far more than heeding it.
You can’t demand a withdrawal from someone you have not invested in.
All you need is faith, trust and pixie dust!
A setback is a setup for a comeback.
If all you ever did is all you’ve ever done, then all you ever get is all you’re gonna get.
Purpose motivates employees better than profit. They are proud if they can say, ‘Our company is making the world cleaner, the food healthier.’
There is no reason for any person to have a computer in their home.
Startup companies don’t do better just because you throw more money at them.
Anyone who has ever taken a shower has had a great idea.
The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth (broadly, Artificial Intelligence) is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.
Mistakes … the portals of discovery.
Failing is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit.
Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget.
Life is just one damned thing after another.
Interesting, if true.
The simplest explanation is always the most likely.
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.
Never rule out that there are economic linkages you don’t understand.
You can never complete the work, nor must you abandon it.
What is not possible is not to choose.
A man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘We’ve always done it this way.’
After you ask a closing question, SHUT UP! The next person who speaks loses.
No matter what cohort you think you are part of, there is always a bell-shaped curve.
Deliberately obsolete your product. Do this by raising expectations for the category and ‘reinventing’ your brand in the eyes of the consumer. Nothing puts more pressure on a competitor.
Smart MFs sound like Crazy MFs to Dumb MFs.
Nobody cares about your product, service or solution. All they care about is the difference you can make for their organization.
In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning in indispensable.
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.
First, they ignore you. Then, they laugh at you. Then, they fight you. Then, you win.
Whatever people … do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike.
Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible.
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
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.
The less money you need, the harder it is to run out.
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
For some entrepreneurs it’s better to be never than late.
It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.
If you‘re the smartest person in the room, you haven’t hired well.
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.
Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.
Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
We’re imperfect people pursuing perfect ideas and there’s tremendous frustration in the gap.
I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Adult humans are only a little more rational than five-year-olds.
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.
Even if the situation or challenge is very complex, usually the simplest solution is the one to go with.
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.
People have anxiety about ambiguity.
Discovery is the process of simultaneously seeing things that everyone sees and thinking things that no one has thought.
Sleep on your big decisions and then be decisive.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open sewer and die.
If you don’t have a solution to match the scale of the problem, you have a hobby.
Is anything more un-American than an empty shelf?
The meek shall inherit the earth – but not its mineral rights.
Not knowing what you’re doing has nothing to do with where you’re going.
Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood.
For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
Simplicity is a virtue.
If you’re the smartest guy in the room, find another room.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Too many kings can ruin an army.
Think like an entrepreneur. Create like an innovator. Perform like a teammate.
More important than what disease the person has is what person has the disease.
Until we have an exit, we Angel investors are just donors.
Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.
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.
A recent study found that intense tedium is a major contributing factor in the desire for an early death. I just made that up. But I’ll be we could pay for research that would find that.
It’s one thing to be wrong about the valuation. It’s another to be wrong about the business model.
By the time you get really good at this, you’ll be dead!
Done is better than perfect.
There’s a price to pay for the price you pay.
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.
The best innovation comes from technology which reduces the time between intention and action.
Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
Being a great entrepreneur is doing all the things you love to do on the days you don’t feel like doing them.
An entrepreneur is someone who shoots an arrow and then runs to move the target, so the arrow hits it.
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.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.
Try to become not a [person] of success, but try rather to become a [person] of value.
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!
On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme. (One leads by calm.)
Humility is the most underrated aspect of being an entrepreneur. Once your head gets too big, you’re cooked.
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.
Failing to plan, is planning to fail.
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
If you have no idea how something is supposed to be done, I guarantee you’ll be disruptive. Let what you don’t know become your greatest asset.
Design is an agent of change, which can help us to make sense of what is happening and to turn it to our advantage.
I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.
It’s so much easier to do something new than to do something well.
Take my factories and my money but leave me my salesmen and I’ll be back where I was in two years.
We’re not trying to entertain the critics… I’ll take my chances with the public.
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.
There is great power in ignorance and naivete.
If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Solving big problems is easier than solving little problems.
Wealth is not about having a lot of money. It’s about having a lot of options.
I don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I just try to change the spokes.
Things are never going to turn out the way you think they will.
Good judgment comes from experience and experience … well, that comes from poor judgment.
When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.
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 past is never dead. It’s not even past.
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.
A fish doesn’t know it’s wet.
It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.
Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
With Early Stage companies, it’s never one thing. It’s always one thing after another.
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
I am not a fan of lost causes. But a … of causes not yet won.
There is nothing so depressing as boundless optimism.
Focus on doing things that can’t hurt and might help. You’ll always be ahead.
If you presume, you are putting ‘P’ on your resume.
You can’t innovate once.
I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time, I am right.
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
Success is easy if you think of it like rust: It’s inevitable if you keep at it.
When you need money, go ask for advice. When you need advice, go ask for money.
It’s not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.
Done equals good.
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present.
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the entrepreneur adjusts the sails.
You can’t make a good deal with a bad person.
About right now is better than exactly wrong later.
Our company is guided by three deeply held beliefs: That brands with purpose grow, companies with purpose last and people with purpose thrive.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go long, go together.
Make no little plans.
Storms make trees take deeper roots.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss in enthusiasm.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
I never had an idea in my life. I’ve got no imagination. I never dream. My so-called inventions already existed in the environment – I took them out.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
I’m sure that you’re trying to challenge yourself to invent something new. That’s impossible.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
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.
Nothing new ever happened before.
People have a historical memory that goes back to breakfast.
You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can.
There’s only one boss: the customer. He can fire everybody from the chairman on down simply by spending his money elsewhere.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.
The customer of my customer is my customer.
They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around.
He that can’t endure the bad will not live to see the good.
If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.
Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
Anytime anybody says, ‘It’s good enough,’ it’s shitty.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
Focus wins. Doing too many things fails.
If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I will ruin you.
There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.
I believe that smart people working hard will eventually get lucky.
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
Your job is to make people care about your obsessions.
Nothing is easy. If you want to do nothing, that’s easy.
We had a quote over the door that read, ‘Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.’
If you watch entrepreneurs long enough, you observe that innovation is typically a ground game, not a Hail Mary pass.
Good enough never is.
If a ruler’s anger rises against you, do not leave your post; calmness can lay great offenses to rest.
It’s hard to teach a young dog old tricks.
As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.
They tried to be too clever, and that was their undoing.
Strategy – is figuring out what is the most important thing for your company and deciding to focus on it and say no to everything else.