“Adapt to them—don’t expect them to adapt to you.”

“To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.”

“Starting a business is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. In mid air, the entrepreneur begins building a parachute and hopes it opens before hitting the ground.”

“a smart person believes only half of what he hears, but a really smart person knows which half to believe.”

“If you wouldn't follow yourself, why should anyone else?”

“Speak up TODAY and say something positive. Even a tombstone will say something good about people when they are dead.”

“If you haven’t yet discovered and developed your style, study other communicators.”

“Good leaders listen, learn, and then lead.”

“Your ultimate goal as a leader should be to work hard enough and strategically enough that you have more than enough to give and share with others.”

“As people gain more authority, they often develop a lack of patience in listening to those under them. A deaf ear is the first indication of a closed mind.”

“you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be.”

“what gets rewarded gets done. If you praise and honor the people who epitomize the values of the team, those values get embraced and upheld by other members of the team. There is no better reinforcement.”

“There are two things that are most difficult to get people to do: to think, and to do things in order of importance.”

“Several years ago Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s book, Psycho-Cybernetics, was one of the most popular books on the market. Dr. Maltz was a plastic surgeon who often took disfigured faces and made them more attractive. He observed that in every case, the patient’s self-image rose with his and her physical improvement. In addition to being a successful surgeon, Dr. Maltz was a great psychologist who understood human nature. A wealthy woman was greatly concerned about her son, and she came to Dr. Maltz for advice. She had hoped that the son would assume the family business following her husband’s death, but when the son came of age, he refused to assume that responsibility and chose to enter an entirely different field. She thought Dr. Maltz could help convince the boy that he was making a grave error. The doctor agreed to see him, and he probed into the reasons for the young man’s decision. The son explained, “I would have loved to take over the family business, but you don’t understand the relationship I had with my father. He was a driven man who came up the hard way. His objective was to teach me self-reliance, but he made a drastic mistake. He tried to teach me that principle in a negative way. He thought the best way to teach me self-reliance was to never encourage or praise me. He wanted me to be tough and independent. Every day we played catch in the yard. The object was for me to catch the ball ten straight times. I would catch that ball eight or nine times, but always on that tenth throw he would do everything possible to make me miss it. He would throw it on the ground or over my head but always so I had no chance of catching it.” The young man paused for a moment and then said, “He never let me catch the tenth ball—never! And I guess that’s why I have to get away from his business; I want to catch that tenth ball!”

“Believing in the cause creates your conviction. Believing in your vision fuels your inspiration. Believing in your people builds your motivation.”