Quotes

• Some people must dream broadly and guidelessly, if only to balance those who never dream at all. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. / Irv Grousbeck
• Beware what you set your heart upon for surely it shall be yours. Ralph Waldo Emerson/Irv Grousbeck
• It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and better to sometimes be cheated than not to trust. Samuel Johnson/Irv Grousbeck
• Promotion should not be more important than accomplishment, nor avoiding instability more important than taking the right risk. Peter Drucker/Irv Grousbeck
• Measuring up to all of life’s demands involves the overestimation of one’s capabilities. Goethe/Irv Grousbeck
• Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not. Often times we call a man cold, when really he is sad. Longfellow/Irv Grousbeck
• Up, child, up, embrace the headache and the crown; marred pleasure’s best; shadow makes the sun strong. Stevie Smith/Irv Grousbeck
• Life is like a sled dog team; if you’re not the leader, the view never changes. Irv Grousbeck
• Success is never final; failure is never fatal. Winston Churchill/Irv Grousbeck
• Everyone, at some time and in some areas, is a follower, and it is just as important to be discriminating in choosing whom to follow as it is to prepare to lead. Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leader/Irv Grousbeck
• If the trumpet be uncertain, who shall heed its call? Irv Grousbeck
• Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at something worth doing. Theodore Roosevelt/Irv Grousbeck
• In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. Anne Frank
• One of my maxims about coaching is that, as a coach, I have to tell you when you make a mistake so that you know you made a mistake.. And I know you made a mistake and the rest of the team knows you made a mistake and that we won’t stand for that kind of behavior. But it’s not personal criticism. Being patient is a two-way street. We’ll be patient with the players if they’re patient with us. Phil Jackson
• The strongest human instinct is to impart information. The second strongest is to resist it. Scottish author Kenneth Grahame
• The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. Alvin Toffler (Wisdom and Ignorance)
• Bad news doesn’t get better with age.
• Far better it is, to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt
• P=EFT (DHC+ESC+ERA). “Prosperity is the sum of financial technology times the sum of human capital plus social capital plus real assets,” Michael Milken
• Purpose, Motivation, Direction – Chris Land’s three keys to leadership

So then
To every man his chance,
To every man, regardless of his birth,
A shining golden opportunity,
To every man the right to live,
To work, to be himself,
And to become whatever thing
His manhood and his vision
Can combine to make him.
This, seeker, is the promise
Of America. — Thomas Wolfe

• Substitute information for inventory! Kevin Fox
• Execution is the chariot of genius. William Blake
• Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
• The way to forecast the future is to make it.
• On such a full sea are we now afloat that we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. William Shakespeare, Julius Caeser / Irv Grousbeck
• You’d better not tell a man to go to hell unless you can make him go there. Alvin Wirtz, ex- US Senator from Texas / Irv Grousbeck
• We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse and keep. Anne Swetchine / Irv Grousbeck
• Be master of your will and slave to your conscience. Judah Leib Lazerov
• Man, like a great vine, supported lives; the strength he gains is from the embraces he gives. Alexander Pope / Irv Grousbeck
• There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way. Christoper Marley / Irv Grousbeck
• You have to recognize that every “out front” maneuver you make is going to be lonely and uncomfortable. That warm sense of everything going well is usually the body temperature at the center of the herd. John A. Masters / Irv Grousbeck
• We have gone hand in hand a little while and dreamed a dream, and searched a mystery. Charlotte Marsh Post / Irv Grousbeck
• At every crossing that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand guards appointed to preserve the past. Maurice Maeterlinck / Irv Grousbeck
• Life does not always require us to do extraordinary things, but rather it most often demands that we do the ordinary things extraordinarily well.
• We shall not cease from exploration,
• And the end of all our exploring,
• Will be to arrive where we started,
• And know the place for the first time.
• TS Eliot
• The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on. Walter Lippmann / Elizabeth Dole
• I expect more from myself than anyone else could possibly demand. Julius Irving
• Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. Peter Drucker
• There is no real excellence in this world which can be separated from right living. David Starr Jordan
• What you are shouts so loudly in my ear I can hardly hear what you say. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law. Cecile B. DiMille
• We are what we repeated do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle

Sow a thought; reap an action.
Sow an action; reap a habit.
Sow a habit; reap a character.
Sow a character; reap a destiny.
from Steven Covey

• Habits are like cable. We weave a strand of it every day and soon it cannot be broken. Horace Mann / Steven Covey
• Initiative can neither be created nor delegated. It can only spring from the self determining individual, who decides that the wisdom of others is not always better than his own. R. Buckminser Fuller
• Replace the word “closing” with “commitment” because making a sale is the solidification of a relationship, not the end. Robert Rodin / Marshall Thurber
• Making your numbers without living our values and mission is grounds for dismissal. Jack Welch / Marshall Thurber
• Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing. Helen Keller / Marshall Industries / Marshall Thurber.
• Trees, once they are lopped and cut, grow up again in a short time, but man, being once lost, cannot easily be recovered. Plutarch / Mendocino Redwood Company Rockport Demonstration Forest
• After physical training, you feel invincible. I was shouting, ‘Let me hear your war cry!’ to see their intensity level, their controlled rage. They were feeding off me and screaming. I could see the passion in everybody’s eyes. Those young men were so impressionable. I made them repeat: ‘Today I have given all that I can give. That which I have kept I have lost forever.’ Today I’ve given all — everything I had, my heart, blood and soul. Gunnery Sgt. Paul McKenna and India Company, Quantico, Va., August 1999
• Consider the ebb and flow of the tide. When the waves come to strike the shore, they crest and fall, creating a sound. Your breath should follow the same pattern, absorbing the entire universe in your belly with each inhalation. Know that we all have access to four treasures: the energy of the sun and the moon, the breath of heaven, the breath of earth, and the ebb and flow of the tide. O Sensei Moreihi Uyeshiba, Founder of “AIKIDO” / Reuben Hechanova
• It is only at the moment of humans’ realistic admission to selves of having made a mistake that they are closest to that mysterious intergrity governing the universe…The courage to adhere to the truth as we learn it involves, then, the courage to face ourselves with the clear admission of all the mistakes we have made. Mistakes are sins only when not admitted. R. Buckminster Fuller / Money & You
• Poetry means saying the most important things in the simplest way. R. Buckminster Fuller / Money & You
• When you get bit by the dog three times, you know it’s not the dog. Marshall Thurber
• To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded! – Emerson / http://www.fridgedoor.com
• If you can’t be different, you might as well be damned. Robert Goizueta
• I want to see you shoot the way you shout. Theodore Roosevelt
• Everyone who knows how to read has it in their power to magnify themselves, to multiply the ways in which they exist, to make their life full, significant and interesting. Aldous Huxley
• Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. Benjamin Franklin
• Things have to be made to happen in a way you want them to happen. Without management, without the intervention of organized willpower, the desired result simply cannot be obtained. Robert Heller
• Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries. James Michener
• Nothing happens unless it is first a dream. Carl Sandburg
• Desiderata
• Go placidly amid the noise & haste, & remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly & clearly; and listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story.
• Avoid loud & aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain & bitter; for always there will be greater & lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
• Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everwhere life is full of heroism.
• Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.
• Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatique & loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
• You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees & the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
• Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
• With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
• The world is full of abundance and opportunity. But far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car…a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel.
• They expect little and as a result they get little. Ben Sweetland
• Today, life is so much more convenient than when I was young. We didn’t have TV. We seldom saw an airplane. A lot has changed, but there is one thing in 62 years that I have not seen. I have not seen anyone find a convenient and easy way to succeed or to win. Lou Holtz
• Until one is committed, there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is this element of truth: The moment one commits oneself, then providence moves all.
• This is the true joy in life – that being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. That being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughlly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. George Bernard Shaw
• Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. Conrad Hilton
• The only love which has lasted is the love which has everything, every disappointment, every failure, which has accepted the fact that in the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for being with each other. Graham Greene
• I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. Henry David Thoreau
• Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be. Goethe
• No one can hurt you without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
• Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answers to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are all there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account. John Gardner
• He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. Edmund Burke
• You cannot step in the same stream twice. Heraclitus
• Listen or thy tongue will keep you deaf. American Indian Proverb
• A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner. English Proverb
• It is not half as important to burn the midnight oil as it is to be awake in the daytime.

Why Pretty Good Is Pretty Bad

There once was a pretty good student, who sat in a pretty good class
And was taught by a pretty good teacher, who always let pretty good pass.
He wasn’t terrific at reading; he wasn’t whiz-bang at math.
But for him education was leading, straight down a pretty good path.
He didn’t find school too exciting, but he wanted to do pretty well,
And he did have some trouble with writing, and nobody taught him to spell.
When doing arithmetic problems, pretty good was regarded as fine.
Five plus five needn’t always add up to ten, a pretty good answer was nine.
The pretty good class that he sat in, was part of a pretty good school.
And the student was not an exception; on the contrary, he was the rule.
The pretty good school that he went to, was there in a pretty good town.
And nobody there seemed to notice, he could not tell a verb from a noun.
The pretty good student, in fact, was part of a pretty good mob.
And the first time he knew what he lacked was, when he looked for a pretty good job.
It was then, when he sought a position, he discovered that life could be tough.
And he had a sneaky suspicion, pretty good might not be good enough.
The pretty good town of our story, was part of a pretty good state
Which had pretty good aspirations, and prayed for a pretty good fate.
There once was a pretty good nation, pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much too late,
If you want to be great, pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.
From “The Osgood File” ©1986 CBS Inc.

• To begin to think with purpose is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment. — James Allen
• Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless. — Thomas Edison
• Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. — William Shakespeare
• There isn’t a person anywhere that isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can. — Henry Ford Plan your work, then work your plan. — Jay Virgil Mayhugh
• Well done is better than well said. — Benjamin Franklin
• Load up your mind with pictures capturing your preferred tomorrow. Put the remembrances of the past in a place where they won’t block your view. — Gary Carter
• You are what you love, not what loves you. Adaptation, (movie)
• When they say that the devil is in the details, they are trying to tell you that the details MATTER.
• Far better it is, to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt
• P=EFT (DHC+ESC+ERA). “Prosperity is the sum of financial technology times the sum of human capital plus social capital plus real
• Greatness does not lie in preaching, it lies in practice.
• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. from Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson
• Care is both a thought and an action.
• A scared dog will bite more quickly than an angry dog.
• Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. — Cecil Beaton
• Give good things in pieces. Give bad things all at once.
• Never argue with a man whose job depends upon not being convinced. H.L. Mencken
• In human affairs times of advancement are preceded by times of disorder. Success comes to those who can weather the storm. -TAO TE CHING
• Managers who never reassess their work prioritization are inadequate managers. Managers who take on the work the organization requests (or demands) and who don’t prioritize are inadequate managers. Organizations that don’t rank their work will fail. Johanna Rothman
• Energy flows where attention goes.