Quotes From 2009 – Never bet on a race unless you are running in it!

Was cleaning my google drive and found this document titled ‘my fav quotes for 2009’. Read them over and still like them so here they go.

Don’t have the reference where I read those but most came from blog entries, or books I was reading.

Enjoy.

• It’s like the weather. A commander does not need to know the barometric pressure or the winds or even the temperature. He needs to know the forecast. If you get too caught up in the production of information, you drown in the data.
• You’ll enjoy more clarity when you’re in motion than when you’re standing still.
• A pilot has better visibility from the air than from the ground.
• It’s way more fun to run a successful vegetable stand than to be a bankrupt comedy club owner.
• Competition and the market are like water. They go where they want.
• Smart businesspeople focus on the things they have the power to change, not whining about the things they don’t.
• Movement isn’t enough… Action isn’t enough…Without direction.
• Most people, though, the ones with great jobs, are in the business of dancing with entropy, not creating it. Take what comes, sort it, leverage it, improvise and make something worthwhile out of it.
• I will be a fervent and intelligent user of technology, to conserve my two most precious assets: time and money.
• Most of all, I’ll remember that the journey is the reward. I will learn and grow and enjoy every single day.
• Remember, big thoughts and small actions make a difference.
• And therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you.
• Events are easier to manage, pay for and get excited about. Processes build results for the long haul.
• Keep this hard work quarantined to a reasonable number of focused hours each day, and harness the rest of the time to recharge, relax, and, in general, enjoy life.
• Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon
• I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand
• Never bet on a race unless you are running in it.
• As Eric Reis puts it: “In any situation it is your responsibility, using your best judgment, to do what you think is in the best interests of the company. That’s it. Everything else [in your job description] is only marketing
• When learning a new language, everyone speaking your target language becomes interesting.
• The beginner stage of a new endeavor to be the most fun because that’s where we learn the fastest
• Don’t have any strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, and then you can improve.
• If the big picture is clear enough to decide, then decide from the big picture without using a magnifying glass
• As you go along and figure out what you’re passionate about, you might have your eye on the destination, but the journey is where your true lessons will be learned
• Benjamin Franklin said in Poor Richard’s Almanack…”Reading makes a full man–Meditation a profound man–Discourse a clear man.”
• The only way to put mileage on an idle mind is to read books that make you say huh! “I never thought of it like that”.
• Going with the flow is a euphemism for failing.
• I found the book to be like a good Chinese dinner: entertaining at the time of reading, but left hungry an hour later
• Not every experiment works, but at least be willing to play in the lab.
• Try on different hats while learning to see what fits best.
• I think it’s easy to slip out of the experimental, “throw it on the wall and see if it sticks” mentality that we have when we are just starting out with something new.
• The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.- Marcel Proust
• It’s unfair, but communication trumps talent in many cases
• No one really cares what you do on the small scale, or what things you quit. In the end you’re judged on your results.
• In other words, a student’s natural talents lead to career success, not going to the right school.
• You don’t become a ninja by reading a list of tips, you become a ninja by training
• Earn a reputation. Have a conversation. Ask questions. Describe possible outcomes of a point of view. Make connections. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Align objectives then describe a better outcome. Show up. Smile
• Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand
• The best way to find the right tool for the job is to learn to be good at switching hammers.
• The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.” – Arnold Toynbee
• The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
• Big turnarounds require big effort.
• Here’s a rule that’s so inevitable that it’s almost a law: As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring. With more to lose and more people to lose it, meetings and policies become more about avoiding risk than providing joy.
• Join the people who can say, “I love doing this.”
• You define yourself by the work you do
• You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself
• “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts: for support rather than illumination.”
• ‘‘Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.’’—CONFUCIUS
• If the only reason you’re only wearing one hat is because you’ve always only worn one hat, that’s not a good reason.
• ‘‘Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.’’ —CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
• Then again, it’s hard to make a significant body of work long-term, unless you’re totally obsessed and single-focused. Besides eating, drinking and screwing, Picasso didn’t do much else with his time, except make art.
• Don’t worry about being an artist. Worry about getting the work made. If you’re any good, the rest will follow. Rock on.
• Epictetus once said, ‘‘Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself’’
• The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, ‘‘What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.’’
• A trial by fire can either burn you or forge you – leaders are forged.
• Every decision we make in life is based on incomplete information.
• Almost all of the worthwhile learning that people do comes outside the classroom. It comes from losing yourself in an experience, reading books because you want to read them, trying new things because you want to try them, and reflecting on all of this stuff, adding it to your tool belt.
• True understanding comes from reflecting on your experience.
• You can’t start a fire without a spark, but unless you tend to that fire carefully, it can burn itself out and you’re left with nothing at all
• The Road reaches every place, but shortcut only one.
• What is that single quality that makes someone precious and indispensable? Beyond intelligence, loyalty, kindness, respect, discipline, pride, passion and compassion, it’s…the ability to create.
• In building a network, remember: Above all, never, ever disappear.
• After all, a rising tide lifts all boats,
• Drive fills your days. Passion fills your nights.
• Its far better to reach a level of confidence and skill that you can describe solutions rather than ask for tasks
• Followers are easily replaceable, leaders are not.
• Songs about romance don’t tell you how to make out, they merely encourage it. It’s not the data that people seek, it’s the mood.
• Quit waiting for the right answer.
• It’s the ride that counts. – Brad Feld
• “If you would not be forgotten As soon as you are dead and rotten, Either write things worthy reading, Or do things worth the writing.” – Benjamin Franklin
• “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”- Steve Jobs
• I always felt life is better defined by lots of small starts and finishes than a giant marathon
• Desktop littered with tiny icons? Bump your icon size up to say, 80×80 and start deleting and re-filing. Making the icons bigger means they have to compete for space. Unimportant things are easier to keep around when they are small
• The challenge is in responding with education, not reacting with anger.
• Learn the methodology and the process than the tools… so don’t Lose the wood for the tree!!!
• Focus is the key. The big lesson I took from Outliers was that consistent practice over a long period pays off. It takes a lot of practice to become great at something – but if you want to leave your mark and truly become an outlier, you need to start cracking. Three hours a day for ten years should do the trick.
• People are far more likely to embrace a smaller goal that feels likely than they are to devote themselves day and night to the amorphous jackpot.
• Murakami remarks: If I am asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist, that ‘s easy too: focus – the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment. Without that you can’t accomplish anything of value.
• Will Wright said he’s learned the most from games that seemed appealing on paper, but were failures in the marketplace. “I actually ask people when hiring how many failures they’ve worked on,” he said, “and I’m actually more likely to hire someone based on how many failures they’ve experienced. I think it’s the best learning system.”
• I strongly suggest your first game is not a very hard game. You should not spend a lot of time on it and you should not plan on making a lot of money from it. Your first game should be a learning experience. It should be a lesson you start, and finish, and move on from. Try to do the best you can, but don’t try to make Doom your first game.
• Impressiveness, on the other hand, comes from doing things very well in a way that defies expectation
• The relationship between reward and skill level is not linear, but, instead, exponential
• One does not discover new lands without losing sight of the shore. ~unknown
• You can’t direct the wind, but you can adjust your sail ~unknown
• The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. – Michelangelo
• Giving in early makes it easier to keep the important stuff in later
• You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.
• Doubt is the father of invention.
• Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so
• I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.
• If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.
• I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night
• To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. -Marilyn vos Savant
• I think the reason so many people lose isn’t because they weren’t swinging hard enough. It’s because they quit too early after striking out.
• Make the gross adjustments first, and then work on the finer adjustments.
• Whether you have the best plan constantly, it’s more important that you simply stick to a plan
• If you want to change what your boss believes, or the strategy your company is following, the first step is to figure out how to be the best informed person in the room
• Basically, he said he starts with the first scene in mind, and the last. Then he just starts. Sometimes he gets stuck (which is why he brought back a character from 15 years ago). But he said he wants to spend his time working on his book, not ” working” on outlines and plans.
• William L. McKnight, then CEO of 3M, said in 1924: If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need.”
• Many years ago during a televised interview, the actor Rod Steiger was asked if young people ever asked him for advice. “Oh yeah, sure, all the time, and I always ask them the same question: Do you want to be an actor…or do you HAVE TO BE AN ACTOR? The longer it takes them to answer, the less chance they’ll ever make it.”
• It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. Henry David Thoreau
• “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
• People who actively look for the “best” parking place in a parking lot outside a mall, say, inevitably spend more total time than people who just take the first open spot they see.

Want More….

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