Quotes About Opportunity

To a Bonaparte it represents what Jacob Astor meant when he said, "The first hundred thousand dollars are the most difficult." It is the beginning, the possibility of a fortune, not a fortune itself. With it, Bonaparte, the greedy little soldier, could go to Paris and begin the story.

Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel. Not just to be as good as someone else, but to be better. This is the nature of man and the name of the game. - Ted Williams

Lacking clear systems and signals, the neutral zone is a chaotic time, but this lack is also the reason the neutral zone is more hospitable to new ideas than settled times. Because the neutral zone automatically puts people into Bessemer's situation, it is a time that is ripe with creative opportunity.

Establish by word and example that this is a time to step back and take stock, a time to question the "usual," and a time to come up with new and creative solutions to the organization's difficulties. Explain how business as usual chokes off creativity and explain why the present is the best possible time to generate and test new ideas. Model this new manner yourself by taking time to step back and question how your own job is done.

The task before you is therefore twofold: first, to get your people through this phase of transition in one piece; and second, to capitalize on all the confusion by encouraging them to be innovative.

Provide opportunities for others to step back and take stock, both organizationally and individually: schedule offsites, process reviews, surveys, and open conversations; offer people the chance to review their careers and refocus their efforts in areas of growing interest to them.

Embrace losses, setbacks, or disadvantages as entry points into new solutions.

The transition's of life's second half offer a special kind of opportunity to break with the social conditioning and do something really new and different.

Author says change emphasizes what is happening TO us while transition emphasizes opportunity for growth within.

Capitalize on the break in normal routines that the neutral zone provides to do things differently and better. In the neutral zone the restraints on innovation are weakened. With everything up in the air anyway, people are more willing than usual to try new things, and should be encouraged to do so.

Every day the sun will rise and you never know what the tide will bring in. -Tom Hanks, in the movie 'Castaway'.

Tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring...

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else. Ralph Waldo Emerson American essayist, lecturer and poet (1803-1882)

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.

The Jockey Syndrome has been the primary mechanism in American sports for tilting the ostensibly level playing field of sport away from equal opportunity and toward white supremacy.

That which is possible is inevitable.

The descent beckons as the ascent beckoned

A great future doesn't require a great past.

Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise.

Gyan Shala (Hindi for "a school for knowledge or wisdom") offers the poor an extremely cheap and effective private school option by renting single classrooms in slums and employing local women from the informal sector as teachers.

I haven't done anything--yet.

los organismos de ayuda no pueden acabar con la pobreza en el mundo, pero sí pueden hacer muchas cosas útiles para satisfacer las desesperadas necesidades de los pobres y darles nuevas oportunidades.

Dado que no puedes hacer lo que quieres, pregúntate qué puedes hacer».

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.