Most politicians are not authentic.
Nike doesn’t want to make products for everyone – they want to make products for champions.
There’s nothing efficient about innovation.
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.
It’s important to slow down, every now and then, for no other reason than to call someone to say ‘Hi.’ It doesn’t have to be a long conversation. Just calling out of the blue does more to let someone know you still care about them than nearly anything else.
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?
My concern is that we live in an economy in which stabbing someone and waiting for them to complain before we remove the knife has become the normal way of doing business. When did we lose sight of the fact that it’s not nice to stab people in the first place?
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.
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.
Notoriously outspoken, his sentences always punctuated with profanities, General George S. Patton was the epitome of what a leader should be like – or so he thought. Patton believed a leader should look and act tough, so he cultivated his image and his personality to match his philosophy.
Offer someone the opportunity to rebuild a company or reinvent an industry as the primary incentive, and it will attract those drawn to the challenge first and the money second.
Emails get reactions. Phone calls start conversations.
Pilots have their names painted just beneath the canopy of their aircraft. This gives the pilot a sense of ownership for his or her jet. What’s more, like cars, each aircraft has its own personality, so it’s important for a pilot to get to know and love his aircraft.
The irony is, the advertising industry knows everyone hates what they produce. This is why they keep looking for new ways to force people to stay tuned.
A boss wants to pay for results, an employee wants recognition for effort. If a boss recognizes effort, they will get even better results.
In this age of omniconnectedness, words like ‘network,’ ‘community’ and even ‘friends’ no longer mean what they used to. Networks don’t exist on LinkedIn. A community is not something that happens on a blog or on Twitter. And a friend is more than someone whose online status you check.
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.
Entrepreneurs see the thing they want or need, then try to figure out a process of how to get it. People who shouldn’t be entrepreneurs see the standard process they need to go through to get the thing they want or need then decide if they want to go through that process.
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.
We live in times of high stress. Messages that are simple, messages that are inspiring, messages that are life-affirming, are a welcome break from our real lives.