“If you want to break through to higher levels of performance, you must allow yourself to be restructured.”
“If BlackHat people can monetize an opportunity (that is, convert it to money), and especially if they can scale it (that is, make money from a big mass of people), then they will do it—happily so—and even create their own sub-markets to serve that BlackHat opportunity.”
“What is my business in this? Oh yea, it is my business. It is not just my business, it is my calling.”
“Intentions do not insulate us from the consequences of our actions.”
“The moment I entered the bright, buzzing lobby of Men’s House I was overcome by a sense of alienation and hostility … The lobby was the meeting place for various groups still caught up in the illusions that had just been boomeranged out of my head: college boys working to return to school down South; older advocates of racial progress with utopian schemes for building black business empires; preachers ordained by no authority except their own, without church or congregation, without bread or wine, body or blood; the community “leaders” without followers; old men of sixty or more still caught up in post-Civil War dreams of freedom within segregation; the pathetic ones who possessed noting beyond their dreams of being gentlemen, who held small jobs or drew small pensions, and all pretending to be engaged in some vast, though obscure, enterprise, who affected the pseudo-courtly manners of certain southern congressmen and bowed and nodded as they passed like senile old roosters in a barnyard; they younger crowd for whom I now felt a contempt such as only a disillusioned dreamer feels for those still unaware that they dream—the business students from southern colleges, for whom business was a vague, abstract game with rules as obsolete as Noah’s Ark but who yet were drunk on finance.”
“Sometimes, as in a game of chess, we must strategically regress so that we might progress toward our ultimate objective.”
“The Highest Reward for men and women s devotion and dedication to excellence is not what one gets from it but what one he or she becomes through it.”
“Catch a customer with emotion and you will have a customer for a day; but, capture a customer with value and you will keep a customer for a lifetime. I truly believe in good, old-fashioned values when it comes to business. That is what timelessness is made of! At the end of the day, the question is, “Do you want to build a good hut for a day or do you want to build a good fortress for a lifetime?” Quality, value, understanding the needs of your clientele— that’s how you build a legacy. Connect with people, because you can never underestimate just how many people out there are yearning for any form of good interpersonal connection that they can find and when you can provide that as a brand name, you can allow the person behind your business to shine through. That’s how timelessness is created. It’s not created by luring people into a myth; it’s created by making connections, by remembering people’s names, by being genuinely interested in everybody.”
“He or she who gets hired is not necessarily the one who can do that job best; but, the one who knows the most about how to get hired.”
“Able hands are more favorable to business than adorable hearts .”
“You will reach success if you move forward, staying still only makes your journey longer.”
“As more women lean in to their careers, more men need to lean in to their families. We need to encourage men to be more ambitious in their homes.”
“Your personal growth, how you show up, and the ways you lead ultimately determine the success of your business and your life.”
“If the people in an organization think the company is small, they will act that way. If they think the company is big, they will act that way.”
“You can win in business by playing checkers until someone sneaks in one night after you’ve closed for the day and flips the board.”
“You cannot run a multimillion-dollar business like you would a lemonade stand.”
“Don’t confuse “strict confidentiality” with “keeping employees in the dark.” Private is useful. Secretive is deceptive.”