Quotes About Inspiration

We usually think of passion as an inner quality. But the more I visited hotbeds, the more I saw it as something that came first from the outside world. In the hotbeds the right butterfly wingflap was causing talent hurricanes. "I

Collisions - defined as serendipitous personal encounters - the lifeblood of any organization, the key driver of creativity, community, and cohesion.

He's very smart, but the smartest thing about him is that he thinks sort of like an eight-year-old," says Jeanne Markel, director of culture for the Downtown Project. "He keeps things really simple and positive when it comes to people.

You're creating new things in movies and people are going to steal them.

I invented the pelican, but probably not the acorn or unicorn.

I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime.

Ireland was a place for the renewal of hope and I still see it like that.

I actually bought a travel guitar, and that guitar is really cool. You can actually fold the guitar, and you can plug headphones into it, but it's acoustic, or semi-acoustic.

Later! What an astonishing idea. What a powerful concept. What a fabulous discovery.

The mind that leaps is the mind that lives.

Make no little plans they have no magic to stir men's blood...Make big plans, aim high in hope and work.

Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity.

Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art." —TWYLA THARP

that enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation, namely how creative a person feels when working on the project, is the strongest and most pervasive driver.

By neglecting the ingredients of genuine motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—they limit what each of us can achieve.

The days that people make progress are the days they feel most motivated and engaged. By creating conditions for people to make progress, shining a light on that progress, recognizing and celebrating progress, organizations can help their own cause and enrich people's lives.

they found "that enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation, namely how creative a person feels when working on the project, is the strongest and most pervasive driver.

Leave an imprint. You're young now. But when you get older and look back at your life, you'll ask yourself a whole bunch of questions. Did I make a difference? Did I contribute something? Did my being here matter? Dud I do something that left an imprint? I'm not asking you to end hunger or repair the ozone. But I am asking you to think about your purpose --- to recognize that your life isn't infinite, and that you should use your limited time here to do something that matters.

The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whether it's in the arts, sciences, or business." TERESA AMABILE Professor, Harvard

Expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time," Collins wrote in Good to Great. "If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated. The real question then becomes: How do you manage in such a way as not to de-motivate people?

For routine tasks, which aren't very interesting and don't demand much creative thinking, rewards can provide a small motivational booster shot without the harmful side effects.

We know—if we've spent time with young children or remember ourselves at our best—that we're not destined to be passive and compliant. We're designed to be active and engaged. And we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren't when we're clamoring for validation from others, but when we're listening to our own voice—doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves.

Sawyer Effect: A weird behavioral alchemy inspired by the scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in which Tom and friends whitewash Aunt Polly's fence. This effect has two aspects. The negative: Rewards can turn play into work. The positive: Focusing on mastery can turn work into play.

Now, once a quarter, the company sets aside an entire day when its engineers can work on any software problem they want—only this time, "to get them out of the day to day," it must be something that's not part of their regular job.