I’ll begin with this quote from Tim Ferris:
“Feeding your mind is how you become your own best coach. To learn from the best you don’t need to meet them, you just need to absorb them through books, audio, or a single powerful quote.”
That is certainly true for me! This year as I partnered with clients to simplify and combat busyness (to allow focus on what is most important), as I helped teams tap into their creativity and as I continued to deepen my understanding of leadership in today’s environment, I read the works of thought leaders. And as I did, I captured their quotes and insights.
In this blog, I’ve culled out of pages of notes, the quotes that deeply resonated with me. I hope they provide for you insights and inspiration as well.
On Being Too Busy / Simplifying / Focusing on the Most Important
“In a busy world, clarity is power.” Yuval Noah Harari
“Deep work requires three hours of focus.” Scott Belsky
“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” Michael Bungay Stanier
“What you do is more important that how you do it. Doing something well does not make it important.” Michael Bungay Stanier
“Being busy is more often used a guise for avoiding the critically important, but uncomfortable actions.” Michael Bungay Stanier
“Learn to pause or nothing good will catch up to you.” Doug King
“How can more good come into our lives if there is not room for it.” Sarah Bahn Breathnach
“Many problems of focusing can best be solved by defining what to ignore. “
“What are you over-planning? Under-planning?”
“How might you be kinder to yourself?”
“Make your “no” list by starting with your “yes” list.” Tim Urban
On the Future of Work
“Human care will be done by humans for a long time.” Yuval Noah Harari
“Creativity is difficult to automate.” Yuval Noah Harari
On Creativity
“You must learn to be a disciplined half-ass”. Elizabeth Gilbert
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” Jack Canfield
“There are no radical creative choices that do not carry with them an inherently equally radical failure.” Aiesha Tyler
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir man’s blood…..make big plans, aim high in hope, and work.” Daniel H. Burnham
“Failure is inextricably tied to any success.” Kyle Mainard
“Competition is the opposite of creativity.” Terry Crens
On the Entrepreneurial Spirit
“Customers don’t know what they want but can identify the problems that have.” Scott Belsky
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their own dreams.”Eleanor Roosevelt
“I’d rather be doing something I feel is great and amazing than to be safe and comfortable living a life I hate.” Terry Crews
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily; not to dare is to lose oneself.” Soren Kierkegaard
“Anything worth doing is going to take 5 to 10 years.”
“Fuck you…pay me for what I’m worth.” Veronica Belmont
On Leadership
“Just as we can engage in conflict to deepen our relationship, so can we do so to extend possibilities.” Jennifer Garvey Berger
“The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.” Walt Disney
“Courage is more important than confidence.” Debbie Millman
“When I have the opportunity, did I choose courage over comfort?” Brenee Brown
“One should use common words to say uncommon things.” Schopenhauer
“Judge a man by his questions, not by his answers.” Pierre Marc-Gaston
“Ask profound questions and pay attention to those you avoid.” Pierre Marc-Gaston
“Good questions are like pick axes, they open people up, open new doors and create opportunities.” Alex Blumberg
“Learn more. Know less.” Neil Strass
“To deal with overwhelm – mentally manage what is coming from the outside. To focus, mentally manage what is going on inside.” Neil Strass
“Anything healthy that gets you out of your mind and into your body is good for your mind.”
If you would like to develop your leaders, to infuse more creativity into your organization or to be less busy and get more done, we’d love to partner with you to find a solution that works for you.
You can schedule a time to learn more by using the contact form at the bottom of this page: https://evergreenleadership.com/
One Response
Hi, Kris, Thanks for this list. It’s always good to reflect on other’s thoughts to help us focus our own. Here are a couple that I keep coming back to…
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” Lucius Seneca
“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?” Henry David Thoreau
Hope this finds you well and “busily” getting ready to enjoy the holidays with family.
Regards,