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Inspirational Quotations by B. C. Forbes (#684)

May 14, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Today marks the birthday of Bertie Charles Forbes (1880–1954,) American financial journalist and editor. Forbes was the founder of the Forbes business magazine and publishing empire.

Born a poor country boy in Scotland, Forbes started work as a printer’s apprentice at age 14. He soon became a financial journalist in England, and progressively graduated into the roles of reporter, editor, and publisher first in South Africa and then in New York. In 1916, he successfully started the Forbes magazine at age 36 and became famous for writing profiles of business leaders. By 1946, Forbes reached a circulation of 100,000 and was popular not only for its analyses of business and economic trends, but also for Forbes’personal style of business journalism.

Forbes wrote several books including Finance, Business and the Business of Life (1915,) Men Who Are Making America (1917,) Forbes Epigrams (1922,) and 101 Unusual Experiences (1952.)

Inspirational Quotations by B C Forbes

The incontestable truth is that America has been built up by optimists, not by pessimists, but by men possessing courage, confidence in the nation’s destiny, by men willing to adventure, to shoulder risks terrifying to the timid.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don’t put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Whimpering never kept a leaking vessel from foundering. Vigorously manning the pumps has. Get busy with your head and hands, not your chin.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Money, or even power, can never yield happiness unless it be accompanied by the goodwill of others.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity’s door if you ardently wish to enter.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Thomas Edison reads not for entertainment but to increase his store of knowledge. He sucks in information as eagerly as the bee sucks honey from flowers. The whole world, so to speak, pours its wisdom into his mind. He regards it as a criminal waste of time to go through the slow and painful ordeal of ascertaining things for one’s self if these same things have already been ascertained and made available by others. In Edison’s mind knowledge is power.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

J.P. Morgan, then past 70, was asked by the son of an eminent father why he (Morgan) didn’t retire. “When did your father retire?” asked Mr. Morgan, without looking up from his desk. “In 1902.” “When did he die? Oh, at the end of 1904.” “Huh!” snapped Mr. Morgan, “If he had kept on working he would have been alive still. Work is God’s best medicine. It is God’s medicine for man.”
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

We must learn that to enjoy happiness we must conscientiously and continuously seek to spread happiness. Selfishness is suicidal to happiness.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

You have no idea how big the other fellow’s troubles are.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Opportunity can benefit no man who has not fitted himself to seize it and use it. Opportunity woos the worthy, shuns the unworthy. Prepare yourself to grasp opportunity and opportunity is likely to come your way. It is not so fickle, capricious and unreasoning as some complain.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

There is more genuine joy in climbing the hill of success, even though sweat may be spent and toes may be stubbed, than in aimlessly sliding down the path to failure. If a straight, honorable path has been chosen, the gaining of the summit yields lasting satisfaction. The morass of failure, if reached through laziness, indifference or other avoidable fault, yields nothing but ignominy and sorrow for self and family and friends.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The real friend is he or she who can share all our sorrow and double our joys.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Life is just an endless chain of judgements…. The more imperfect our judgement, the less perfect our success.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Tell me how a young man spends his evenings and I will tell you how far he is likely to go in the world. The popular notion is that a youth’s progress depends upon how he acts during his working hours. It doesn’t. It depends far more upon how he utilizes his leisure…. If he spends it in harmless idleness, he is likely to be kept on the payroll, but that will be about all. If he diligently utilizes his own time … to fit himself for more responsible duties, then the greater responsibilities-and greater rewards-are almost certain to come to him.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Lady Luck generally woos those who earnestly, enthusiastically, unremittingly woo her.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The man without religion is as a ship without a rudder.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The victors of the battles of tomorrow will be those who can best harness thought to action. From office boy to statesman, the prizes will be for those who most effectively exert their brains, who take deep, earnest and studious counsel of their minds, who stamp themselves as thinkers.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Jealousy… is a mental cancer.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

The man who has done his level best, and who is conscious that he has done his best, is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

A price has to be paid for success. Almost invariably those who have reached the summits worked harder and longer, studied and planned more assiduously, practiced more self-denial, overcame more difficulties than those of us who have not risen so far.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong, able, alert men go after opportunity.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Ambition means longing and striving to attain some purpose. Therefore, there are as many brands of ambition as there are human aspirations.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal. When few comforts come from without, it is all the more necessary to have a fount to draw from within.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Madame Curie didn’t stumble upon radium by accident. She searched and experimented and sweated and suffered years before she found it. Success rarely is an accident.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Honesty is the cornerstone of character. The honest man or woman seeks not merely to avoid criminal or illegal acts, but to be scrupulously fair, upright, fearless in both action and expression. Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Thinking Straight in the Age of Overload // Book Summary of Daniel Levitin’s ‘The Organized Mind’

May 9, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 8 Comments

In the best-selling The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin argues that the problem with the proliferation of information isn’t as much about the storage of the information as it is about organizing and retrieving that information. The human brain is incredible at storing data; the challenge is summoning up the right stuff at the right time, while not being distracted by the rest.

To be efficacious, we not only need to limit the information we consume (by simplifying, limiting our sources, quitting social media, taking digital Sabbaths, etc.) but also need to develop systems to take the strain off our befuddled brains. To do this, Levitin says, we must organize our personal environments to better channel our brains’ unique approach to doing things.

According to The Organized Mind, the trick to efficiently organize and manage information is to “shift the burden of organizing from our brains to the external world.” Levitin uses the latest brain science to propose “organization principles”—methods and disciplines to regain a sense of mastery over the way we can organize our time, home, and office.

Organization Principle #1: Conquer information overload

The information age is drowning us with an exceptional deluge of data. Simultaneously, we’re expected to make more decisions quickly than ever before. To survive information overload, Levitin suggests:

Be much more discerning at what you allow in. Not all input is worthy of being let in. Exercise control and discipline regarding your input choices. Don’t keep what you can’t use.
Develop and put into practice an organization system that works for you: to-do lists, 3×5 cards, etc. Whatever that system is, it needs to offload, classify, and be easy to retrieve. A mislabeled item or misplaced location is worse than an unlabeled item.
Organize in all areas and facets of your life. “Too much stuff” is fatiguing, no matter which part of your life has the “too much stuff” problem.

Organization Principle #2: Quit multi-tasking and become fanatical about focused work

Levitin’s pet hate is multitasking, which he describes as “the ultimate empty-caloried brain candy.” Our brains are not designed for multitasking; he writes, “When people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost in doing so.”

Allow no distractions when you are in “focused work mode.”
Limit the interruption caused by email, text messages, visitors, and callers.

Organization Principle #3: Rest more, work less

In our chronically sleep-deprived society, sleep deficit is a performance killer. The general effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance are well-known: scientists have documented that when we are sleep-deprived our immune system suffers, our thinking and judgments are impaired, and our fuse becomes very short.

Studies have found that productivity goes up when the number of hours per week of work goes down, strongly suggesting that adequate leisure and refueling time pays off for employers and for workers. Overwork—and its companion, sleep deprivation—have been shown to lead to mistakes and errors that take longer to fix than the overtime hours worked. A sixty-hour work week, although 50% longer than a forty-hour work week, reduces productivity by 25%, so it takes two hours of overtime to accomplish one hour of work. A ten-minute nap can be equivalent to an extra hour and a half of sleep at night.

A calm, well-rested mind is a fruitful mind. Don’t overlook sleep, rest, and vacation as stress busters.

Organization Principle #4: Organize your physical environment into categories so it helps your mind

One principle that Levitin emphasizes repeatedly is “offloading the information from your brain and into the environment” so you can “use the environment itself to remind you of what needs to be done.” One appealing example he offers is, “If you’re afraid you’ll forget to buy milk on the way home, put an empty milk carton on the seat next to you in the car or in the backpack you carry to work on the subway (a note would do, of course, but the carton is more unusual and so more apt to grab your attention).”

Levitin also emphasizes the importance of putting things away in their designated places, because there’s a special part of our brain dedicated to remembering the spatial location of things.
Neuroscientists have proved that the human brain is good at creating and thinking in categories. “The fact that our brains are inherently good at creating categories is a powerful lever for organizing our lives.” Further, “productivity and efficiency depend on systems that help us organize through categorization.”

Organization Principle #5: Spend only as much time on decisions, tasks, and actions as they are worth.

Most decisions can be reduced to a choice of four simple actions: drop it, do it, delegate it, or defer it.
If something can be done in two minutes or less, just do it (see my article on this.)

Significantly, Levitin suggests the practice of satisficing—a decision-making approach that aims for acceptable or “good enough” results, rather than the optimal solutions:

Satisficing [is] a term coined by the Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon, one of the founders of the fields of organization theory and information processing. Simon wanted a word to describe not getting the very best option but one that was good enough. For things that don’t matter critically, we make a choice that satisfies us and is deemed sufficient. You don’t really know if your dry cleaner is the best—you only know that they’re good enough. And that’s what helps you get by. You don’t have time to sample all the dry cleaners within a twenty-four-block radius of your home. … Satisficing is one of the foundations of productive human behavior; it prevails when we don’t waste time on decisions that don’t matter, or more accurately, when we don’t waste time trying to find improvements that are not going to make a significant difference in our happiness or satisfaction. … Recent research in social psychology has shown that happy people are not people who have more; rather, they are people who are happy with what they already have. Happy people engage in satisficing all of the time, even if they don’t know it.

Organization Principle #6: A Zen mind is an organized mind

Beyond the productivity hacks and the tweaks, Levitin suggests a spiritual composure in favor of mental organization. He advocates practicing Zen-like mindfulness not only to relieve the anxiety that comes with worries over undone tasks and unease over future uncertainties, but also to allot more of your limited attention to the present moment.

Instead of seeking to cope with information overload and travel at warp speed, focus on the things you can do to put yourself on the right path to better wellbeing—one thought, one bite, one task, one project, and one breath at a time.

Recommendation: Read Daniel Levitin’s ‘The Organized Mind’

In today’s “age of information overload” you may find yourself continuously distracted and swamped with demands for multitasking. Daniel Levitin’s fascinating The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload explains how to organize your mind, systematize your home and office, and gain control over your life.

Even if The Organized Mind is somewhat meandering and ill-organized (which is ironic for a book on getting organized) Levitin discusses noteworthy capabilities and limitations of the human brain and how to effectively deal with them.

Idea for Impact: Develop a comprehensive plan to audit, simplify, and structure how information flows through your life. Develop personal habits and organizational systems to lead your mind effortlessly to good decision-making. As Levitin suggests, “The task of organizational systems is to provide maximum information with the least cognitive effort.”

Inspirational Quotations by Rabindranath Tagore (#683)

May 7, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941,) the pre-eminent literary genius not only of his native Bengal, but also of South Asia—possibly the whole of Asia.

Tagore displayed an extraordinary combination of talents: he was a poet, novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, educationist, philosopher, painter, lyricist, composer, and singer.

Tagore wrote in his mother tongue Bangla. His colossal body of work spanned all literary genres and lead to a renaissance of vernacular literatures across the subcontinent. Tagore is translated beyond the borders of region and language; Gitanjali (1910, Eng. trans. Song Offerings Gitanjali) remains Tagore’s most translated work.

Tagore’s versatile genius wielded a deep influence on the psyche of the Bengali people. He also culturally and politically inspired India and Bangladesh, where he remains the subject of deep pride and admiration.

As a philosopher, Tagore challenged the binarism of India’s spiritual values and the spirit of the West. He held that one’s native culture could be reconciled by acknowledging and absorbing the good in other cultures. Taking into consideration the great conflicts of his time, Tagore articulated his vision of the “universal man.” He wrote, “The unity of human civilization can be better maintained by linking up in fellowship and cooperation of the different civilizations of the world.” And, “Let the mind be universal. The individual should not be sacrificed.”

Tagore was the first non-Westerner to receive a Nobel Prize. In accepting the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature, Tagore was recognized for “his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West”.

Tagore has the rare distinction of writing the national anthems of three countries. India’s “Jana Gana Mana” and Bangladesh’s “Amar Sonar Bangla” are his compositions. Tagore also wrote the Bengali song “Nama Nama Sri Lanka Mata” for his student Ananda Samarakoon who translated the lyrics to Sinhalese and recorded it in Tagore’s tune to create Sri Lanka’s national anthem.

Inspirational Quotations by Rabindranath Tagore

If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

In the dualism of death and life there is a harmony. We know that the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its journey to realise the infinite. It is death which is monistic, it has no life in it. But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as well as truth; and death is that appearance, that maya, which is an inseparable companion to life.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. It’s one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment’s hesitation to crush beauty and life out of them, molding them into money.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

Where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

The potentiality of perfection outweighs actual contradictions… Existence in itself is here to prove that it cannot be an evil.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

Love’s overbrimming mystery joins death and life. It has filled my cup of pain with joy.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

The fundamental desire of life is the desire to exist.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

In the world’s audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeams, and the stars of midnight.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don’t let yourself indulge in vain wishes.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

“A Hundred Years from Now”—A Poem by Rabindranath Tagore

Here is a snippet of Tagore’s 1896 poem “A Hundred Years from Now” (“Aaji Hote Shata Barsha Pare” in Bengali) from his one-act play Chitra (1913.) English translation by Fakrul Alam in The Essential Tagore.

A hundred years from now
Who could you be
Reading my poem curiously
A hundred years from now!
How can I transmit to you who are so far away
A bit of the joy I feel this day,
At this new spring dawn,
The beauty of flowers this day
Songbirds that keep chirping away
Of the crimson glow of the setting sun.
How can I love them all with my love,
And hope you will make them your own
A hundred years from now? …

?

An impulse from me that could make your soul sway.
At a time a hundred years away! …

?

A hundred years from now
Who will that new poet be
Singing in your festival merrily?
I send him my spring greetings —
Hoping he will make them his own
Let my spring song resound in your spring day
For a while let my tune stay —
In the fluttering of your soul, the humming bees,
And murmuring in leaves,
A hundred years from now!

Looking at Problems from an Outsider’s Perspective

March 28, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Fixation Hinders Creative Thinking

In two previous articles (this and this,) I’ve addressed the psychological concept of a “fixed mental set” or “fixation:” assessing a problem from a habituated perspective can prevent you from seeing the obvious and from breaking away from an entrenched pattern of thinking.

A period of rest, entertainment, or exposure to an alternative environment can usually dissipate fixation. The resulting shift in perspective can alter your point of view in a literal and sensory way, or it may change the way you think about or define the problem at hand.

A particularly instructive example of the beneficial effects of altering thought perspectives comes from Andy Grove’s autobiography / management primer Only the Paranoid Survive (1996.) Grove, the former Chairman and CEO of Intel who passed away earlier this year, was one of the most influential tech executives Silicon Valley has ever seen.

Japanese Onslaught on Intel’s Memory Business

Memory chips dominated Intel’s revenue, since the company was founded in 1968. In fact, Intel had a near monopoly in the memory business. However, by the late ’70s, a few Japanese competitors emerged. Grove reflected, “The quality levels attributed to Japanese memories were beyond what we thought possible. … Our first reaction was denial. We vigorously attacked the data.” In due course, Intel recognized the threat to its competitive position. (Between 1978 and 1988, the Japanese companies grew their market share in the memory business from 30% to 60%.)

At the same time, a small entrepreneurial team of engineers had developed Intel’s first microprocessor. In 1981, Intel persuaded IBM to choose this microprocessor to run their personal computers.

By 1985, when Grove was President, Intel’s executives engaged in an intense debate on how to respond to the onslaught of Japanese competitors in the memory business. One faction of engineers wanted to leapfrog the Japanese and build better memory chips. Another faction was in favor of disposing the lucrative memory business and betting Intel’s future on its promising microprocessor technology—something they believed the Japanese couldn’t match.

The “Revolving Door Test:” Getting an Outsider’s Perspective

In the middle of this intense debate, Grove was at a meeting with Intel’s CEO, Gordon Moore (of the Moore’s Law fame.) Grove had an idea for Moore; he recalled this episode in Only the Paranoid Survive,

I remember a time in the middle of 1985, after this aimless wandering had been going on for almost a year. I was in my office with Intel’s chairman and CEO, Gordon Moore, and we were discussing our quandary. Our mood was downbeat. I looked out the window at the Ferris Wheel of the Great America amusement park revolving in the distance, then I turned back to Gordon and asked, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?” Gordon answered without hesitation, “He would get us out of memories.” I stared at him, numb, then said, “Why don’t you and I walk out the door, come back in and do it ourselves?”

The switch in perspective—i.e. asking “What would our successors do?”—provided a moment of clarity for Moore and Grove. By contemplating Intel’s strategic challenges from an outsider’s perspective, shutting down the memory business was the discernible choice. Even Intel’s customers were supportive:

In fact, when we informed them of the decision, some of them reacted with the comment, “It sure took you a long time.” People who have no emotional stake in a decision can see what needs to be done sooner.

From the time Intel made the important decision to kill its memory chips business, it has dominated the microprocessor market.

If existing management want to keep their jobs when the basics of the business are undergoing profound change, they must adopt an outsider’s intellectual objectivity. They must do what they need to do to get through the strategic inflection point unfettered by any emotional attachment to the past. That’s what Gordon and I had to do when we figuratively went out the door, stomped out our cigarettes and returned to the job.

People in the trenches are usually in touch with pending changes early. Salespeople understand shifting customer demand before management does; financial analysts are the earliest to know when the fundamentals of a business change. While management was kept from responding by beliefs that were shaped by out earlier successes, our production planners and financial analysts dealt with allocations and numbers in an objective world.

Idea for Impact: If You’re Stuck on a Problem, Shift Your Perspective

Often, you can find the solutions to difficult problems merely by defining or formulating them in a new, more productive way.

Consider employing Andy Grove’s “Revolving Door Test” and examining your problems through an outsider’s lens. This shift in perspective may not only engender intellectual objectivity but also muffle the emotion and anxiety that comes with momentous decision-making.

Inspirational Quotations by Abraham Lincoln (#671)

February 12, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

Inspirational Quotations by Abraham Lincoln

Today marks the birthday of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), one of the most recognized political leaders of all time.

Not much is known about the early life of the 16th President of the United States. Lincoln was born in a log cabin to a poor family, lost his mother at nine, completed just one year of traditional schooling, spent his youth in Indiana, and did manual labor until he was 21.

Lincoln pursued self-education by reading books on grammar and rhetoric and joined a debate society. At age 27, after years of private study of law, he obtained a license to practice and eventually became one of Illinois’s ablest lawyers. Lincoln also worked his way through the Illinois State Legislature and got elected to the US House of Representatives. He gained popularity for his down-to-earth wit, integrity, and opposition to the institution of slavery.

Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War held the country together through the worst moral, constitutional, and political crisis in its history. Amidst the War, at his second inauguration, Lincoln addressed the nation with his famous words, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds … .” John Wilkes Booth, an actor who had heard Lincoln speak at his second inauguration, fatally shot him just six weeks later at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C.

Lincoln is arguably the most admired President of the United States. He was famous for his compassionate nature, gentle spirit, and great oratory. His iconic 1863 Gettysburg Address is revered for its reaffirmation of a major founding principle of the United States: that all humans are born equal. To this day, this speech remains a model of ideological rhetoric and oratorical simplicity:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal … We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Inspirational Quotations by Abraham Lincoln

Perhaps a man’s character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

With the catching ends the pleasures of the chase.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

In times like the present men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

He who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Every man is proud of what he does well; and no man is proud of what he does not do well. With the former, his heart is in his work; and he will do twice as much of it with less fatigue. The latter performs a little imperfectly, looks at it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines himself exceedingly tired. The little he has done, comes to nothing, for want of finishing.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy, but my friend, these I reckon will give you a good lift.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all; but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a blessing.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe fruit at length falls into his lap.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Everybody likes a compliment.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

We hope all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Lessons on Adversity from Charlie Munger: Be a Survivor, Not a Victim

January 24, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 5 Comments

Munger: One of the Most Respected Business Thinkers in History

Berkshire Hathaway’s Vice-Chairman Charlie Munger (b. 1924) is a distinguished beacon of rationality, wisdom, and multi-disciplinary thinking. As Warren Buffett’s indispensable right-hand man, Munger has been a prominent behind-the-scenes intellectual who has created billions of shareholder wealth.

The story of Charlie Munger’s life is an archetypal American Dream: a hardworking, principled young man overcomes life’s trials and tribulations, and builds a billion-dollar fortune through industry, diligence, candor, and an obsession with self-improvement. Munger is also a prominent philanthropist. He preferred to donate his money now rather than give it as a bequest with the intention of appreciating the results of his giving. After donating $110 million to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Munger said, “I’m soon going to be departed from all of my money, why not give more of it away while I get the fun of giving it?”

“Horrible Blows, Unfair Blows” on the Road to Success

Munger’s sharp mind, irreverent, outspoken outlook, and commonsense-thinking are legendary. For fans who flock to Omaha to witness him and Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, the 92-year old Munger remains a cult figure.

At age 17, Munger attended the University of Michigan but dropped out to enlist in the military during World War II. After the war, he entered Harvard Law School without an undergraduate degree and graduated in 1948 with a J.D. magna cum laude. He started practicing law in Los Angeles, but gave up his practice at the urging of Warren Buffett to concentrate on managing investments and developing real estate. He never took a course in business, economics, or finance but became a billionaire. He ascribes most of his “worldly wisdom” to his zeal for self-improvement (identical to his idol Benjamin Franklin) and plenteous reading. He once said, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none, zero. … My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”

Even if Munger remains an inspiration for a life well lived, his life has not been entirely perfect. Consider some of the struggles he coped with on his pathway to success.

At age 29, in 1954, Munger got divorced from his wife after eight years of marriage. Munger lost everything to his wife including his home in South Pasadena. According to Janet Lowe’s insightful biography Damn Right, Munger moved into “dreadful bachelor digs” at Pasadena’s University Club and drove an “awful” yellow Pontiac with a shoddy repaint job. That car made him “look as if he had not two pennies to say hello to each other.” When daughter Molly Munger probed, “Daddy, this car is just awful, a mess. Why do you drive it?” The impoverished Munger replied, “To discourage gold diggers.”
The financial pressure came at a testing time. A short time after the divorce, Munger’s 9-year old son Teddy was diagnosed with leukemia. At that time, cancer survival rates were insignificant and Munger had to pay for everything out-of-pocket because there was no health insurance. According to his friend Rick Guerin, Munger would visit the hospital when his son “was in bed and slowly dying, hold him for a while, then go out walking the streets of Pasadena crying.” Teddy died a year later in 1955.
Many years later, Munger had a horrific cataract surgery in his left eye that rendered him blind with pain so severe that he eventually had that eye removed. Recently, when doctors notified Munger that he had developed a condition that was causing his remaining eye to fill up with blood, he stood the risk of losing his vision in his other eye too. Being the obsessive reader that he is, the prospect of losing eyesight entirely made Munger comment, “Losing the ability to see would seem to be a prison sentence.” Undeterred, Munger was ready to brace himself for what life had to offer. He told a friend, “It’s time for me to learn braille” and started taking lessons. As luck would have it, the worrisome eye condition has since receded.

Charlie Munger on Confronting Adversity and Building Resilience

Adversity, hardship, and misfortune can cause people to conceive themselves as a victim of circumstances. Munger once remarked, “Whenever you think that some situation or some person is ruining your life, it’s actually you who are ruining your life. It’s such a simple idea. Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life. If you just take the attitude that however bad it is in anyway, it’s always your fault and you just fix it as best you can … I think that really works.”
People who choose to react as victims surrender themselves to feelings of being betrayed or taken advantage of. The resulting anger, repulsion, fear, guilt, and inadequacy are futile. Munger once said, “Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought; self-pity gets pretty close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse; you do not want to drift into self-pity.”
Feeling victimized and the ensuing negative thinking patterns are hard to break, but the recovery process encompasses disremembering and forgiving the past, regulating the flawed perspective of the routine ups and downs of life, and taking control and gaining power. In his 2007 commencement speech at University of Southern California’s Law School, Munger said, “Life will have terrible blows in it … horrible blows, unfair blows. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He said that every missed chance in life was an opportunity to behave well, every missed chance in life was an opportunity to learn something, and that your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in constructive fashion. That is a very good idea.”
In a 2011 interview, CNN journalist Poppy Harlow asked if Munger felt betrayed by David Sokol, Buffett’s then heir-apparent who violated company standards during Berkshire Hathaway’s purchase of Lubrizol and was let go. Munger conceded that Sokol’s conduct left him sad, but not let down. “It’s not my nature … when you get little surprises as a result of human nature … to spend much time feeling betrayed. I always want to put my head down and adjust. I don’t allow myself to spend much time ever with any feelings of betrayal. If some flickering idea like that came to me, I’d get rid of it quickly. I don’t like any feeling of being victimized. I think that’s a counterproductive way to think as a human being. I am not a victim. I am a survivor.”

Playing a Victim is by No Means Beneficial or Adaptive

Even in the face of some of the worst misfortunes that could strike you, suffering the resentments and attempting to endure pain are far superior choices than getting absorbed in feeling victimized and powerless.

Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl described how his fellow captives in Nazi concentration camps survived by enduring their sufferings and refusing to give in to feeling victimized. Even when stripped of all their rights and possessions, they exercised their enduring freedom to choose their attitudes and harnessed this freedom to sustain their spirits.

In his inspiring Man’s Search for Meaning (which is one of Munger’s many recommended books,) Frankl wrote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. … Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Idea for Impact: Come what may, you’re not a victim. It is up to you to determine your response.

Don’t operate life on the assumption that the world ought to be fair, just, and objective. You are neither entitled nor unentitled to good treatment.
Recognize that you cannot control, influence, or affect in any way the inequities, injustices, discriminations, and biases that populate the world. You have power over only your life and the choice of your attitudes.
Never feel sorry for yourself or engage in self-pity. Don’t dwell on a “poor-me stance” and consider yourself unfortunate. Don’t become loath to taking responsibility for your actions and the consequences. Stop playing the victim by recognizing and challenging those negative voices in your head. As the Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations, “Put from you the belief that ‘I have been wronged’, and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
When life knocks you over, allow yourself a modest amount of grieving. Then, gather yourself back together, get up, dust yourself down, renegotiate your hopes and dreams, align yourself with reality, put yourself back in the saddle, and get on with life. The ability to rebound quickly from failures and disappointments is one of the key differentiators between successful and unsuccessful people.
What’s important in life is not what happens to you but how you react to what happens.

Books I Read in 2016 & Recommend

December 27, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Personal Finance: Thomas Stanley and William Danko’s The Millionaire Next Door summarizes anthropological research from the ’90s on the attributes of unassuming wealthy Americans. The authors discuss the fancy trappings of affluence and the high cost of maintaining social status. They explain that prosperous individuals prioritize financial independence over a high social status. Key takeaway: It’s easy to get rich by living below your means, efficiently allocating funds in ways that build wealth, and ignoring conspicuous consumption. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Decision-Making / Problem-Solving: Dan Ciampa’s Taking Advice offers an excellent framework on the kind of advice network you need on strategic, operational, political, and personal elements of your work and your life. Taking Advice offers important insights into a seemingly obvious dimension of success, but one that’s often neglected, poorly understood, or taken for granted. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Creativity / Decision-Making / Teamwork: Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats describes a powerful problem-solving approach that enriches mental flexibility by encouraging individuals and groups to attack an issue from six independent but complementary perspectives. Key takeaway: The ‘Six Thinking Hats’ method can remove mental blocks, organize ideas and information, foster cross-fertilization, and help conduct thinking sessions more productively than do other brainstorming methods. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Presentation / Communication: Edward Tufte’s The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint argues that presentations reduce the analytical timbre of communication. In other words, presentation slides lack the resolution to effectively convey context, “weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis.” Tufte contends that, by forcibly condensing our ideas into bullet point-statements, phrases, and slides, we break up narrative flow and flatten the information we’re trying to convey. Key takeaway: Well-structured and succinct memos can convey ideas comprehensively, clearly, and meaningfully. {Read my synopsis in this article. Also, learn about Amazon’s ‘Mock Press Release’ discipline and Procter & Gamble’s ‘One-Page Memo’ practice to communicate ideas.}

Happiness / Relationships: Janice Kaplan’s The Gratitude Diaries. For one year, Kaplan maintained a gratitude journal and wrote down three things that she was thankful for each day. She also decided to “find one area to focus on each month—whether husband, family, friends, or work—and … see what happened when I developed an attitude of gratitude.” Key takeaway: A grateful heart is a happy heart. Stop whatever you’re doing, take stock of your blessings, and be grateful for everything you have in life. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Psychology: Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. When subject to brutal treatment at Nazi concentration camps in Germany, Frankl changed his initial reaction from ‘Why me?’ and ‘Why is this happening?’ to ‘What is life asking of me?’ Such profound shifts in thinking, Frankl argues, could help you find meaning in life, regardless of what is happening on the outside. Key takeaway: The one power you have at all times is the freedom to choose your response to any given set of circumstances. Uncover a sense of purpose in life and you can survive nearly anything. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Psychology: John Tierney and Roy Baumeister’s Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. The book’s central theorem is the much-debated “muscle metaphor” of self-control, which states that willpower is like a muscle that tires out—or runs out of energy—as you use it, but can be replenished and purposely fortified through practice. Key takeaway: Budget your willpower and spend it where and when you need it the most. Eliminate distractions, temptations, and unnecessary choices. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Biography / Leadership: Sam Walton’s Made in America is the Walmart founder’s very educational, insightful, and stimulating autobiography. It’s teeming with Walton’s relentless search for better ideas learning from competitors, managing costs and prices to gain competitive advantage, asking incessant questions of day-to-day operations, listening to employees at all levels of Walmart, and inventing creative ways to foster an idea-driven culture. Takeaways: ten rules of management success, learning from failure, cost and price as a competitive advantage, and Walton’s ‘Ten-Foot Rule’ to become more likeable.

Biography / Leadership: Deborrah Himsel’s Beauty Queen: Inside the Reign of Avon’s Andrea Jung offers an insightful tale of the spectacular rise to the top and the tumultuous fall from grace of the former Avon CEO. Jung initially led six consecutive years of double-digit growth and then presided over a series of operational missteps that led to her resignation. “Her story is a cautionary tale, one that suggests the critical importance of being aware of your weaknesses and how they can sabotage you.” Key takeaway: Spectacular success, especially those attributable to external circumstances, can often conceal on organization’s or an individual’s flaws. When the tide turns, the deficiencies are exposed for all to see. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Biography / Leadership: David Packard’s The HP Way recalls how Bill Hewlett and David Packard built a company based on a framework of principles and the simplicity of management methods. In addition to their technical innovations, Bill and David established many progressive management practices that prevail even today. Starting in the initial days, the HP culture that Bill and David engendered was unlike the hierarchical and egalitarian management practices that existed at other corporations of their day. Key takeaway: The essence of the “HP Way” was a strong and clear set of values, and a culture of openness and respect for the individual. {Read my synopsis in this article. Also learn about management by walking around and Bill Hewlett’s ‘Hat-Wearing Process’ for decision-making.}

Leadership: Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas’s Geeks and Geezers. The authors posit that all potential leaders must pass through a “leadership crucible” that provides an intense, transformative experience. Only after they “organize the meaning” and draw significant lessons from their “crucible experiences” can they become leaders. Key takeaway: Find your “leadership voice” by reflecting on transformative experiences in your life and examining what you’ve learned from them. {Read my synopsis in this article.}

Look at my articles on how to process a pile of books that you can’t seem to finish, and on how self-help books bring hope that change is possible.

Also, see a list of books I read in 2015 and 2014 and recommend.

How to Increase Your Likeability: The 10/5 Rule

December 16, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The 10/5 Rule, also known as the “Zone of Hospitality Rule,” is a well-known guiding principle for extending courtesy to customers in the hospitality, healthcare, retail, and other service industries. The rule instructs,

Whenever a staff member is within ten feet of a guest, the staff member must make eye contact and smile to greet the approaching guest.
When a staff member is within five feet of a guest, the staff member must also look the guest in the eye and acknowledge him/her with a salutation such as “Hello” or “Good Morning, Mrs. Smith.”

Many companies have adapted versions of the 10/5 Rule to improve friendliness, customer-service, and responsiveness. As I’ve written in a previous article, Walmart’s iconic founder Sam Walton instituted the ‘Ten-Foot Attitude’ and said, “… I want you to promise that whenever you come within 10 feet of a customer, you will look him in the eye, greet him, and ask him if you can help him.” At Disney theme parks, “cast members” are encouraged to make eye contact, smile, greet, and welcome each guest as part of Disney’s famous “Seven Service Guidelines.”

Courtesy is an Influence Technique

As expounded in Dale Carnegie’s classic self-help book How to Win Friends & Influence People, we are much more likely to feel warmly toward any person who sincerely makes us feel good about ourselves.

Likeable people not only succeed in their personal relationships, but also tend to be more successful at the workplace. Indeed, highly competent but unlikeable employees do not thrive as well as their moderately competent but more likeable peers.

Idea for Impact: Be courteous. Even simple acts of courtesy (making eye contact, smiling more, listening, showing sincere interest in others, for example) work as an influence technique because folks are much more likely to do things for—and accede to requests from—people they perceive as likeable.

Adapt to Your Boss’s Style: Cases from Andy Grove and Steve Ballmer’s Expectations in Meetings

November 25, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Andy Grove’s Meeting Style at Intel

Intel’s former Chairman and CEO Andy Grove (1936–2016) was known for his brash management style. He habitually resorted to fear as a management technique. In an effort to aggressively pursue the right answers, he devoted his focus to facts and data, as I wrote in my article on lessons from the Intel Pentium integer bug disaster.

In meetings, Grove expected his employees to be self-willed, clear-sighted, and obstinate. Grove wrote in his autobiography / management primer Only the Paranoid Survive (1996,) “Don’t sit on the sidelines waiting for senior people to make a decision so that you can later criticize them over a beer.”

With an “in-your-face” interpersonal style, Grove bellicosely challenged his interlocutors and called his meetings “constructive confrontations.” In contrast, his executives recalled them as “Hungarian inquisitions” in reference to his childhood in Hungary under Nazi and Communist regimes.

Recalling Grove’s technique for meetings, one executive said, “If you went into a meeting, you’d better have your data; you’d better have your opinion; and if you can’t defend your opinion, you have no right to be there.” In pursuit of accuracy and rationality, Grove would rip his employees’ ideas to shreds even while they were still on the first page of their carefully prepared presentations.

Steve Ballmer’s Meeting Style at Microsoft

Another case in point is how Steve Ballmer conducted meetings. For most of his career as Microsoft’s CEO, Ballmer expected his employees to deliver a presentation he hadn’t seen before, take the “long and winding road” of discovery and exploration, and then arrive at the conclusion. This allowed Microsoft employees to expose Ballmer analytically to all their contemplations and postulations before steering him to their conclusions.

Years later, Ballmer reflected that this meeting style wasn’t efficient because, as a high-energy person, he couldn’t bear longwinded narratives and grew impatient for the conclusions. Ballmer changed his expectations of meetings and required employees to send him the presentation materials in advance. He would read them and directly venture into questions, asking for data and supporting evidence only if needed. This gave him greater focus in meetings.

Idea for Impact: Attune to Your Boss’s Communication Style

As I’ve discussed in previous articles, your ability to work well with others can mean the difference in whether your career progresses or stalls. To advance professionally, it’s particularly important that you have a good working relationship with your immediate supervisor.

Bosses, like all people, differ greatly in their capacities and communication styles. You and your boss may be reasonably compatible or you may have entirely different communication preferences, temperaments, and styles. Regardless, you need to achieve a beneficial and cordial way of working with your boss.

Invest time and energy in understanding how your boss works, her ambitions and goals, her priorities, her strengths and weaknesses, the specificity she expects from your projects and decisions, her hot buttons, and her flash points.

Accommodate your boss’s work style. Discuss communication preferences and seek feedback. Be flexible. Ask questions to clarify what you don’t understand.

Inspirational Quotations by Zig Ziglar (#657)

November 6, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Zig Ziglar (1926–2012,) American motivational consultant. This prolific author and public speaker was renowned for his energy, optimism, and plain-spoken style. His recipe “The Ziglar Way” blended homespun wit, sound-bite positivity, and Christian faith to urge people to appreciate the bright side of life.

Born Hilary Hinton Ziglar in rural Mississippi, Ziglar considered his devout mother the foremost influence on his life. Her mental repository of adages (e.g., “The person who won’t stand for something will fall for anything”) influenced many of Ziglar’s faith-filled metaphors and proverbs.

Ziglar initially worked as a salesman and later as a sales-trainer. He switched careers after becoming enthralled with the ability of self-help lecturers to influence others. His first book, Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (1974, later titled See You at the Top) advised readers to reexamine their lives with a “checkup from the neck up” and to abandon their “stinkin’ thinkin’.”

Seminars such as “Success Rallies” and “Born to Win” and over thirty books attracted millions of devoted followers to Ziglar’s advice on personal growth, faith, moral strength, character, leadership, and sales. His bestselling books include See You at the Top (1975,) Secrets of Closing the Sale (1982,) Top Performance (1986,) Success for Dummies (1998,) Selling 101 (2003,) and an autobiography (2004.)

Inspirational Quotations by Zig Ziglar

Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

There’s often no way you can look into the game of life and determine whether or not you’ll get that big break tomorrow or whether it will take another week, month, year or even longer. But it will come!
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When we do more than we are paid to do, eventually we will be paid more for what we do.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You can’t hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Of all the “attitudes” we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important and by far the most life-changing.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Obstacles are the things we see when we take our eyes off our goals.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The only way to coast is downhill.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Success is like a ladder, and no one has ever climbed a ladder with their hands in their pockets.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

People who build hope into their own lives and who share hope with others become powerful people.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The price of success is much lower than the price of failure.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You build a successful career, regardless of your field of endeavor, by the dozens of little things you do on and off the job.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work—if you won’t.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Positive thinking won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Be firm on principle but flexible on method.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

It’s your aptitude, not just your attitude that determines your ultimate altitude.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The door to a balanced success opens widest on the hinges of hope and encouragement.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When your image improves, your performance improves.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you will have, be and do in the tomorrow of your life.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When you forgive somebody else you accept the responsibility for your own future.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the “gotta have it” scale.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Motivation is the fuel necessary to keep the human engine running.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

We all need a daily check up from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitudes.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Our children are our only hope for the future, but we are their only hope for their present and their future.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

What comes out of your mouth is determined by what goes into your mind.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

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