Quotes About Success

Today, every business, including yours, is being observed and studied by others who want your revenues.

Have some general backup ideas in mind, but don't let the backup plan be carved in stone. That will prevent you from learning. The time to begin building formalized backup plans is during the tweaking, changing, and maneuvering that occurs while studying the results of the small bet. Backup plans become vital when a small bet that's turned out to be successful is about to be scaled in size.

If a business isn't growing between 5 and 10 percent annually, the good, highly talented people won't get the responsibility and the financial rewards they want, and they'll leave.

Before you can implement radical change, you have to let go of the things that will destine your attempts for failure, and make letting go a vital part of your culture

Great companies [inevitably] develop a rowboat mentality," says Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony. They are "always looking behind to past successes" with awe and admiration as they row into the future.

A.T. Kearney research shows that the best performing companies had five hundred fewer managers per billion dollars in sales than poorer performing organizations.

We have a history of wanting our leaders to be taller than average. That's probably because in ancient times everyone thought that tall leaders could see farther. We still want leaders to see far enough to tell us which way to go. But many CEOs fail.

Millner is just as excited about the culture of continuous improvement that is at the core of Cabela's. "Adaptation is critical. You've got to adapt. No matter how successful you are, the minute you can't do what you've done, you've got to let it go. If you don't continuously improve, you die.

thousand CEOs, business owners, and highly successful entrepreneurs about their businesses and how they lead companies through good times and bad. One of the most important questions I ask them is "What's the biggest worry keeping you awake at night?

Arrow doesn't allow that kind of "home office knows best" bureaucracy that kills momentum. "The people that run a business really know that business. We execute better because we push activities and decisions down to them," Long explains. "I believe our success is because the people we acquired in the deal all feel they are a part of it.

successful entrepreneurs about their businesses and how they lead companies through good times and bad. One of the most important questions I ask them is "What's the biggest worry keeping you awake at night?

KISS A LOT OF FROGS "The successful don't start with brilliant ideas … they discover them!" —Peter Sims, best-selling author and venture capitalist

It's not the sense of entitlement shared by spoiled rich kids. Instead it's the misguided and arrogant belief shared by so many business owners and executives that their business has a right to continue to exist and do well simply by virtue of either being in business or having been successful at some point.

The late Ken Iverson, credited with originally leading Nucor down the path to constant change and innovation, frequently used a saying still invoked daily at the company: "Anything worth doing is worth failing at.

Today, every business, including yours, is being observed and studied by others who want your revenues. The world operates with such speed that as soon as potential competitors sniff out the fact that another business is doing well and they believe there's a buck to be made they'll be all over it like a cheap suit

Companies with long histories of successfully embracing change and reinvention have a shared disdain for waste and indulgence, which probably comes from the fact that during their formative years they had to count on ingenuity instead of cash to maintain momentum and keep on creating better tomorrows for all the stakeholders.

The lesson is clear: Having too much money or too many resources can actually get in the way of successful reinvention.

He saw his judgments as "something you polish." You look for confirming evidence and get tunnel vision. Judgments close your mind in dynamic situations, and you miss important but subtle bits of information that are critical to success. In many instances Gleason believed that if the leader made sense he could let go and have the crews make their own decisions.

The self-assured Mr. White had made a single big bet and kissed one frog expecting it to turn into a prince, but had forgotten the rule of frogs and princes. You need to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince!

Businesses that do the best job of constant radical change and reinvention simply don't get blinded by the fairy tales of the biggest bets generating the biggest paydays. They realize that successful strategy is discovered by doing, and that doing has to be learned from making lots of small bets.

Succeeding in stocks comes down to accepting that nobody can know the future, and then adopting an investment system that wins by reacting rather than predicting.

I grew up skateboarding it was fun. I didn't think about money, I didn't know how much professional skateboarders made. I just knew that if I became a professional skateboarder, I would achieve a lot and get to travel and do these great things.

of those who had not measured up to its demands were many. He was one of the few who had measured up. He had earned the privilege to call these mountains his home. In return, he

People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as 'parasites' fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society.