THE ENTERPRISE
Sometimes, the most profound thoughts are summarized in brief quotes that carry immense wisdom. Many of you know I like to accumulate these and often use them as signature lines on my email. I thought a listing of many of my favorites would make a worthwhile edition of THE ENTERPRISE, so here goes.
---This one I heard Lou state on New Years Eve and it has become an instant favorite:
"A person really only needs 4 things in life: Something to do; someone to love; something to hope for; and someone to look up to."
—Lou Holtz
---Many of these reveal a philosophy of life and work--mine. Perhaps that these are my favorites is more revealing than any other measure.
"The musician must make music, and artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to ultimately be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be."
--Abraham Maslow
"Security is mostly superstition--it does not exist in nature. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."
--Helen Keller
"I wake up every morning determined both to change the world and have one hell of a good time. It makes planning the day a little difficult."
--E. B. White
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
--Margaret Mead
"The only happy people I know are those who are working well at something they consider important." --Abraham Maslow
"Try not. Do! Or do not. There is no try."
––Yoda
"My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions."
--Peter Drucker
"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The more I help others to succeed, the more I succeed."
--Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's
"Vision without execution is a hallucination."
—Thomas Edison
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
—Albert Einstein
"Leadership is the courage to admit mistakes, the vision to welcome change, the enthusiasm to motivate others, and the confidence to stay out of step when everyone else is marching to the wrong tune."
—E. M. Estes (former Chairman of GM)
"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you will do. Attitude determines how well you do it."
—Lou Holtz
"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
—Peter Drucker (and others)\
"The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer."
—Theodore Levitt
"Leadership is about calling people to do things beyond themselves."
—David Gergen
"Leadership is the ability to take people to places they would be afraid to go alone."
—Robert Galvin
"The block of granite that is an obstacle in the path of the weak becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong."
--Thomas Carlyle
"A hug is a perfect gift. One size fits all and no one minds if you exchange it."
--from a Brush Dance greeting card
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
—Albert Einstein
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you; it's what you think you know that ain't so."
—Will Rogers
"Nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of being hanged."
—Mark Twain (and others)
"I keep six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who."
—Rudyard Kipling
"The truth has a million faces, but there is only one truth."
—Herman Hesse
"Beautiful is what we see. More beautiful is what we understand. Most beautiful is what we do not comprehend."
—Nicolaus Steno, 1673
"After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut."
—Will Rogers
"If A equals success, then the formula is: A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." —Albert Einstein
"If you don't go where you don't go, you won't know what you don't know"
—Steve Goubeaux
"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. And dance like no one is watching."
—source unknown
"This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew."
—Goethe
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
—C. G. Jung
"The three most important questions all winners ask themselves:
1. What do I want? 2. How am I going to get it? 3. When am I going to do something about it?"
--Mark Gibson in "Going For It!"
A few of mine that I think are original:
"There is nothing more exciting, more exhilarating, and more habit-forming than being an integral part of a winning team--one that has fought the battles of competition, together--and emerged victorious, together." —John Mariotti
"In theory there is very little difference between theory and practice; in practice there is a lot of difference." —John Mariotti
"Think Big. Try small. Then adjust and go like hell."
—John Mariotti
"Don't doubt in the dark what you saw in the light."
—John Mariotti (borrowed from an forgotten source)
"How often do we climb the ladder of success without checking to see if it's leaning against the right wall?"
—John Mariotti (derived from a Stephen Covey statement)
FINALLY... novelist Dean Koontz writes some scary, some weird and some inspirational novels. The following is taken from one of his strangest, yet best--One Door Away From Heaven
"What is behind the door that is 'One Door Away From Heaven'?"
"If your heart is closed, then you will find behind that door nothing to light your way. But if your heart is open, you will find behind that door people who, like you, are searching, and you will find the right door together with them. None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness and into the light."
—From the novel of the same name by Dean Koontz
I hope some of these simple bits of wisdom resonate with you as they have with me.
Best, John
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