The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you . . . you have to lean into that and figure out what to do.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has for-gotten the gift.
The only way to keep ahead of the procession is to experiment. If you don’t, the other fellow will. When there’s no experimentation, there’s no progress. Stop experimenting and you go backward.
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
The process of industrial mutation incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. The process of creative destruction is the essential fact of capitalism.
It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.
One of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try and sell it.
Men pay most attention to what is their own; they care less for what is common. They are more prone to neglect their duty when they think another is attending to it.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Greatness is predicated on consistently doing things others can’t or won’t do. Simply put, success is not about being brilliant. It is about being consistent.
Mental toughness and heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that.
When people talk about my free kicks they focus on the goals, but when I think about free kicks I think about all those failures. It took tons of misses before I got it right.
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and who uses his brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Direct motives typically increase performance and indirect motives typically decrease it. The more directly connected the motive is to the activity itself, the better performance becomes.
There is no way that any close relationship can exist without strain, frustration, and the occasional eye roll. Fighting means you have a strong opinion. So share it, discuss, and engage, but remember that you and your mission are bigger than any bickering.
If you want to flourish in this flattening world, you better understand that whatever can be done will be done – and much faster than you think. The only question is whether it will be done by you or to you. Will you drive the innovation or will one of your competitors use it to drive over you?
Contrary to common opinion, less is more. Only by concentrating on the few important and vital things, and refusing to worry over the mass of trivial ones, can we find happiness.
What makes Steve’s methodology different from everybody else’s is that he always believed that the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do.
If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.
There are only four types of officer. First, there are the lazy, stupid ones. Leave them alone, they do no harm. Second, there are the hard-working intelligent ones. They make excellent staff officers, ensuring that every detail is properly considered. Third, there are the hard working, stupid ones. These people are a menace and must be fired at once. They create irrelevant work for everybody. Finally there are the intelligent lazy ones. They are suited for the highest office.
Amazon Leadership Principle—Bias for Action: Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk-taking.
There's so much stuff that has yet to be invented. There's so much new that's going to happen. People don't have any idea yet how impactful the Internet is going to be and that this is still Day 1 in such a big way.
In the traditional authoritarian organization, the dogma was managing, organizing and controlling. In the learning organization, the new dogma will be vision, values and mental models.
People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.
The most important things we can know about a man are the things he takes for granted, and the most important things to know about a society are those which are simply assumed and seldom noticed.
If your actions inspire people to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a transformational leader. You influence people to think, speak, and act in ways that make a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others. That kind of leadership can change the world!
Obsession itself is not a deficit or a character defect; it's a gift! The next time someone starts labeling your obsession an illness, a problem, or some aberration, tell them, I'm not afflicted, I'm gifted.
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No steam or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagra is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
Finding your calling is like finding your why—the reason you exist, your purpose for living. When you do, it changes everything. Your life will never be the same once you know what you're called to do and are working to fulfill it every day.
Taking advantage of an anomaly is an opportunity to inject into your company some of the vitality, excitement, and spirit of experimentation that is characteristic of start-ups.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
In the real world of business, perfect strategies are not called for. What counts is not performance in absolute terms but performance relative to competitors.
In the 21st century, it matters less and less where you live, how old you are, what school you went to (or didn’t), or where you’ve worked. All that matters is what you can do; online innovation communities are the ultimate ‘do-ocracies.’
I have yet to find the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.
From antiquity to today, the best societies, as well as the best companies, have been the ones with a framework of freedom in which individuals can improve their lives by improving the lives of others.
Math-based decisions command wide agreement, whereas judgment-based decisions are rightly debated and often controversial, at least until put into practice and demonstrated.
Extroverts … assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome… . As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.
God plays dice with the universe. But they're loaded dice. And the main objective is to find out by what rules they were loaded and how we can use them for our own ends.
It is difficult for us to imagine that ten years from now, customers will want higher prices, less selection, or slower delivery. Our belief in the durability of these pillars is what gives us the confidence required to invest in strengthening them.
The best communicator isn’t necessarily the person who knows the fanciest words; it’s the person who pays attention and makes others know that they’ve been heard.
For most of us, when we read, the words stay on the page. By paying attention, visualizing and associating, however, we can lift the words off the page and incorporate them into our minds—where they’ll stay for as long as we need them.
Not only is money not bad, but it often can be a result of self-improvement. You receive money in proportion to how helpful you can make yourself to other people.
Invention comes in many forms and at many scales. The most radical and transformative of inventions are often those that empower others to unleash their creativity—to pursue their dreams.
Making progress isn't always about moving forward. Sometimes it's about bouncing back. Progress is not only reflected in the peaks you reach—it's also visible in the valleys you cross. Resilience is a form of growth.
The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It's not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?
All warfare is based on deception. When capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are near.
Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment.
We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.
Some of the biggest opportunities for innovation can come from combining your organization’s own resources with the competencies and assets of other companies to produce radical new solutions for customers.
People actually don't change all that much. Therefore, don't waste time attempting to put in whatever has been left out. Focus instead on trying to draw out what's there. That's hard enough to achieve.
One of the biggest changes in the new social media world is that the more relevant your content is to an audience, the more your content will be distributed by the platform itself.
Ultimately, the most important "speed" issue for companies is cultural. It’s changing the perceptions within a company about the rapidity with which everybody has to move.
Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.
The success of a business is a matter of choosing the right managers. A huge amount of time is spent worrying about strategies. The amount of time spent thinking about managers pales in comparison.
Time is your most valuable and limited resource. It is quite fitting that the most powerful tool in your wealth-building arsenal will also be the one resource you will crave more of.
You can learn anything you need to learn to achieve any goal you want by finding out what others have done before you to get the results you want to get.
The growing list of once successful, major corporations that are now struggling offers vivid testimony to the fact that past success does not guarantee future success - a company must continually renew itself through invention of new product and processes.
You can't draw up plays and then just plug your players in. No matter how well you have designed your play book, it's useless if you don't know which plays your players can run.
Only 1-percent of the people ever try to sell a dream. If only another 1-percent tries, they may double the amount of good stuff happening in the world.
Inventors and entrepreneurs have the imaginative powers not only to define a future state, but to conceive of pathways to bring themselves from the present to the future.
There's a joy in creating value, and an even greater joy in knowing that so many people beyond our organization are benefiting from our accomplishments.
The enterprises that fail to cross-pollinate their Web ventures with what the rest of the company does on a daily basis may find themselves among the industry's most endangered species.
The farther you are away from the world of VC and Silicon Valley, and the less you think your industry is vulnerable to being affected by what is happening in the VC realm, the more you need the Venture Mindset.
Of course, praise generates energy, but only if it is justified. Receiving unmerited accolades can be an insult that reveals indifference on the part of the bestower.
Gifts have always carried with them the likelihood of payback in the form of enhanced reputation. And we're in an age when that reputation can spread indefinitely.
In many ways, today's consumers are not so much changed as they are completely reinvented. Any business or organization that misses this essential point and, as a result, fails to transform itself adequately will be left in the digital dust.
People like holding on to their secrets; they think that's how you make the money. The truth is, building reputation and brand is how you make your money.
When you're in a jungle equipped with nothing but sharp senses and a trusty gun, it's far easier to fend off a couple of big targets than it is to avoid getting eaten alive by thousands of deadly insects.
Day trading attention isn’t about predicting “what’s next.” It’s about staying on the pulse of where people’s eyes and ears are today, and marketing for the “now,” whenever that happens to be.
Self-care is about creating a sense of purpose and movement toward feeling good in and outside the workplace. It is about creating boundaries, and holding these without fearing repercussions.
Don't be an entrepreneur who single-mindedly focuses on perfecting your product. Work to become a valuepreneur by engaging with your audience, understanding their needs, and then adjusting your offering to meet those needs.
No matter which industry you operate in, which organization you work for, or what kind of job you aspire to, the reality is that there is no escaping AI. It will be present.
If your AI adoption is failing or fails, remember that it is usually not an issue of technology but rather a lack of sufficient attention to the humans involved in the process.
We became uncompetitive by not being tolerant of mistakes. The moment you let avoiding failure become your motivator, you're down the path of inactivity. You can stumble only if you're moving.
We are at a turning point in education, one with far-reaching implications that is changing, and will continue to change, everything about learning, work, and human purpose.
When I'd get tired and want to stop, I'd wonder what my opponent was doing. I'd wonder if he was still working out. I'd try to visualize him. When I could see him still working, I'd start pushing myself. When I could see him in the shower, I'd push myself harder.
It's imperative for traditional businesses to study tech giants. Yet the intention of this learning is not to imitate, but to understand how they can distinguish themselves and harness the infrastructures established by these tech behemoths to amplify their own competitive edges.
Fall in love with your life partner but never fall in love with your products. Be willing to discontinue any product at any time for whatever reason. There will always be a new product to take its place.
The truth is that we— as the next generation of workers— have never had a better time in our professions to be able to find the right space to come up with the right ideas. We no longer have to “go to the office” to get our work done.
Many people presume that speaking well when put on the spot requires natural talent—quick-wittedness or the gift of gab...the real secret to spontaneous speaking is practice and preparation.
Remind yourself when it comes to speaking spontaneously, good enough is great. See this as an opportunity to connect, not as an audition for a TV show.
Structure is an important tenet of any successful speech, whether it's impromptu or not. You have to be able to get a beginning, a middle, and an end. You have to know where you're going to start and where you're going to end.
The entrepreneurs who successfully scale are the ones who take ownership of the outcome, even as they simultaneously let go of individual responsibilities.
1st time you hear the prospect implode? You freak out. 100th time you hear the prospect implode? You laugh. Why? Because you know the meeting is coming because you've seen it happen 100 times.
A question you ask is more important than anything that you will ever say; and anything that you can say is more impactful when delivered in the form of a question.
The danger of AI may not be in a technology that develops a will of its own. The real danger, it would seem, is that humans will simply believe anything the machines say, no matter how wrong.
Most people have no idea how AI is already controlling what ads they see, what messages they read. They have even less idea how much AI already knows about them.
When a prospect denies you permission to pitch, they're not objecting to your product. They're objecting to your interruption and swatting you away as a telemarketer
The core idea of a successful business model begins with a clear order of priorities: excited employees first, satisfied customers second, and happy shareholders third.
If you are doing everything else right in terms of your employees, retention will take care of itself. If you need to announce that 'we have to drive retention,' you have already lost; you cannot explicitly drive retention.
Upgrading teams and what it means to be a great teammate is one of the least-curated and underleveraged opportunities for accelerating business outcomes today.
There are no limitations upon what you can accomplish in the profession of selling except the limitations you place on yourself by your own doubts and fears.
什麼叫瘋子,就是重複做同樣的事情還期待會出現不同的結果。