Voltaire

Work banishes the three great evils – boredom, vice and poverty.

Frank Haas

People don’t have time to seek authentic experiences, so they are looking for experiences in the products they buy.

Frances Hesselbein

Focus and attention convey genuine respect, which is the cornerstone of trust.

Daniel Kahneman

What happens with fear is that probability doesn’t matter very much. That is, once I have raised the possibility that something terrible can happen to your child, even though the possibility is remote, you may find it very difficult to think of anything else. Emotion becomes dominant. And emotion is dominated primarily by the possibility, by what might happen, and not so much by the … [ Read more ]

Richard Watson

A study by Cornell and the University of Colorado found that spending money on experiences is more fulfilling than spending it on possessions. So if you’ve got a product, you’d better get busy turning it into an experience. This idea also has serious consequences for companies who have always assumed that the way to keep employees happy is to promise them more money.

Liesl Capper

When our mind gets too much information, we either ignore most of it or group it into chunks. This is how we make decisions about information really quickly, and our brains are hardwired this way. When we were troglodytes, we had to make a rapid decision when something jumped in front of us to either run away or club it on the head. We are … [ Read more ]

Bill Bachrach

People don’t trust you because they understand you – they trust you because you understand them.

Jim Stovall

We view everyone else in light of their results but view ourselves based on our good intentions. If you can find a few people in your personal and professional life who will be honest with you about your own performance, you are, indeed, fortunate.

Bill Gates

Most people overestimate what is going to happen in the next 2 or 3 years and underestimate what is going to happen in the next decade.

Chris Argyris

There are two dominant mindsets in the world of business or any kind of organization.

One is a productive mindset, and it says it’s a good idea to seek valid knowledge, it’s a good idea to craft your conversations so you make explicit what you are thinking and trying to examine. You craft them in such a way that you can test, as clearly as … [ Read more ]

Lewis A. Sanders

People who are brilliant spend their entire lives never being wrong…A little bit of insecurity is a good thing.

Johan V Campbell

The problem with most people is that they do not know what they want, but they do know what it is that they don’t want and they keep asking not to get it – and are constantly frustrated because that is exactly what they get.

If you want to change something in your life, it is important that you use a “moving towards” strategy and … [ Read more ]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Dr. J M Sampath

At the root of every conflict is a commitment not honored, an idea not realized and an opportunity misunderstood.

Dr. J M Sampath

According to George Bernard Shaw, a reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him while an unreasonable man adapts the surrounding conditions to himself. A person’s success is thus a product of whether he is Master of Circumstances (MC) or a Victim of Circumstances (VC).

original Shaw quote:
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to … [ Read more ]

Lou Brock

Show me a [person] who is afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a [person] you can beat every time.

Sally Blount-Lyon

As psychologist Melvin Lerner demonstrated in the 1960s, people have a need to believe that life is controllable, and that life’s outcomes are fair. But life isn’t “fair.” People’s life circumstances are quite diverse and subject to chance events. Thus considered, any sense that fairness exists at all is an illusion – albeit a widespread one!

Ben Cheever

The problem here is that all people are not created equal, though America is driven by this noble falsehood, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Stirring and instructive nonsense, but nonsense nevertheless. We aren’t equal. We don’t all have the same capabilities, the same chances, or the same luck. We don’t even have the same inclinations.

Here’s the idea: Everybody thinks he or … [ Read more ]

Hermann Simon

It can be said that the human being has changed very little during the known course of history. The statements by Plato, Aristotle, or Seneca about the human being, his/her behaviour and conduct, are as accurate today as they were in ancient times. We gain, therefore, valuable insight when we interpret current developments and the future in light of historical analogies.

Thomas Sowell

The prudent reformer, according to [Adam] Smith, will respect ‘the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people,’ and when he cannot establish what is right, ‘he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong.’ His goal is not to create the ideal, but to ‘establish the best that the people can bear.’