Bono Best Quotes

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

Climbing into the ring, the best-prepared fighter is the one who has tried to understand their opponent. Especially if it’s yourself.

People who know our music, they know who you are. They've been in the dark room, they know you better than your best friend, because you don't sing like that to your best friend, you don't sing in their ear.

Real life, however, is very different from school sums. There is usually more than one answer. Some answers are much better than others: they cost less, are more reliable or are more easy to implement. There is no reason at all for supposing that the first answer has to be the best one.

What was remarkable was that associating with a computer and electronics company was the best way for a rock band to seem hip and appeal to young people. Bono later explained that not all corporate sponsorships were deals with the devil. “Let’s have a look,” he told Greg Kot, the Chicago Tribune music critic. “The ‘devil’ here is a bunch of creative minds, more creative than a lot of people in rock bands. The lead singer is Steve Jobs. These men have helped design the most beautiful art object in music culture since the electric guitar. That’s the iPod. The job of art is to chase ugliness away.

In real-life situations apparently logical lines of argument are often (not always) based on an inability to see alternative possibilities. In a similar way the ability to think of an alternative explanation is by far the best way of destroying the arrogance of an apparently logical line of argument.

...we'd rather not play the role of best friends. We'd rather be best friends, and that meant being truthful. Friendship is not a sentimental business.

As I traveled the country promoting my book, I was asked by many people, ‘What are you trying to prove here? Lyndon Johnson is dead. He can’t be prosecuted. What is the point of this other than an academic exercise?’ Here is the point: The government does not always tell us the truth. In fact, the government seldom tells us the truth. If ONE citizen understands by reading my book that everything the government says must be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism, then I will have achieved my goal. Perhaps the best analysis comes from former federal prosecutor and US Attorney David Marston, who wrote to me, “You have viewed the JFK assassination through the prism of a murder investigator’s first question, cui bono (who benefits)? The shocking answer is that the primary suspect has been hiding in plain sight for fifty years: LBJ.

Service, ambition, duty, loyalty, the desire to be the best, the desire to say yes—not such bad character traits to have cherished. I always thought of them as strengths, but lately I wonder if somewhere along the line they became a cover for something more suspicious. The demand to be at the center of the action. To make God in our own image, to help her across the road as if she were a little old lady. This perpetual longing to be filled with the extraordinary so that you begin to lose appreciation for the ordinary.

I’m drawn to conversation because in the best kind you don’t know where you’re going, only that you will get somewhere good.

The best way to solve a management problem, he believed, was through “creative confrontation”—by facing people “bluntly, directly, and unapologetically.

For a service business, nothing is more valuable than engaged employees who feel they can make a difference and want to stay with the organization. Turnover is costly. The best turnover is internal turnover, where people are growing their careers within your enterprise rather than moving someplace else. People aren’t wired to be nomads. They just need to find a place where they feel they can make a real impact.

What you should do is more counterintuitive: Stop for a moment and shut out the noise. Close your eyes to really see what’s in front of you, and then pick the best way forward for you and your team, relative to the organization’s needs.

It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person.1 —BONO

The lateral thinking concept emerged from de Bono’s study of how the mind works. He found that the brain is not best understood as a computer; rather, it is “a special environment which allows information to organize itself into patterns.” The mind continually looks for patterns, thinks in terms of patterns, and is self-organizing, incorporating new information in terms of what it already knows. Given

right to use Apple Corps for their record and business holdings. Alas, this did not resolve the issue of getting the Beatles onto iTunes. For that to happen, the Beatles and EMI Music, which held the rights to most of their songs, had to negotiate their own differences over how to handle the digital rights. “The Beatles all want to be on iTunes,” Jobs later recalled, “but they and EMI are like an old married couple. They hate each other but can’t get divorced. The fact that my favorite band was the last holdout from iTunes was something I very much hoped I would live to resolve.” As it turned out, he would. Bono Bono, the lead singer of U2, deeply appreciated Apple’s marketing muscle. He was confident that his Dublin-based band was still the best in the world, but in 2004 it was trying, after almost thirty years together, to reinvigorate its image. It had produced an exciting new album with a song that the band’s lead guitarist, The Edge, declared to be “the mother of all rock tunes.” Bono knew he needed to find a way to get it some traction, so he placed a call to Jobs. “I wanted something specific from Apple,” Bono recalled. “We had a song called ‘Vertigo’ that featured an aggressive guitar riff that I knew would be contagious, but only if people were exposed to it many, many times.” He was worried that the era of promoting a song through airplay on the radio was over. So Bono visited Jobs at home in Palo Alto, walked around the garden, and made an unusual pitch. Over the years U2 had spurned

Around that time, when the band was in Australia, I had a recurring voice problem and was advised to visit a doctor with a reputation for helping singers. The doctor had a sense that anxiety explained this constant sore throat rather than, as several of my nearest and dearest had suggested, the cheroots, the alcohol, and the talking into the small hours. It was in my interest to trust the good doctor, and because he also had such good references, I agreed to something I’d never previously agreed to. I allowed him to put me under hypnosis. Well, almost … “Imagine,” said the doctor, “a room with all your best memories around you. Be in the room. Now open the drawer. Find those memories. The best things that have ever happened to you. The affirmations. Your partner, your children, your best friends. A moment that changed your life’s direction. All the best things. Be in that room.

Surrender” might be the most powerful word in the world, but now I’m caught between the life I know and the one I don’t. Can I just take a walk on Killiney Hill with my best friend, who happens to be my wife, and sit on that wooden seat that overlooks the bay and not check the phone to see what’s going on somewhere else in the world? Can I take in the view without having to be in it? Can I not take that call, in favor of this other call, to stillness? Is this what vision over visibility looks like now? I bow to no one in my love and respect for Leonard Cohen, but I can’t see myself following him up that mountain on his Zen retreat. I’m not sure I’m made to climb that hill. But then the drip, drip, drip. I hear the words of another Sufi, the poet Rumi. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Maybe I’m discovering surrender doesn’t always have to follow defeat and may be all the fuller after victory. When you’ve won the argument you now understand you never needed to have. The argument with your life

Als Berthe vraagt of ze ergens trots op is aarzelt ze even en zegt dan dat ze jaren geleden, in dat strafkamertje, waar ze dus inderdaad vaak zat, wat ze eigenlijk prettig vond omdat dan niemand zich met haar bemoeide, dat ze, toen ze nog echt een kind was, probeerde op haar handen te staan met haar voeten tegen de muur, bijna zo lang als het Misearatur duurde en dat dat lukte en dat het haar voor het eerst een ongekend gevoel van vrijheid gaf en dat ze toen, dat ze zich toen afvroeg wat er nog meer kon zijn dat haar vrijheid gaf, maar dat ze dit aan niemand heeft verteld omdat op je handen staan toch niet echt nodig wordt gevonden en ook niet gepast, dus het is iets wat niemand weet. Een wolk haalt het groene veldje licht en de rode toef op het bureau weg. Berthe vraagt of ze het nog steeds kan, op haar handen staan, en ze zegt dat ze het al wel drie jaar niet meer heeft gedaan en dat ze nu ook een stuk langer is geworden en Berthe vraagt of ze het voor haar alleen toch nog een keer wil doen, en hoewel het zo lang geleden is en nog nooit iemand heeft gekeken en het vast niet meer goed gaat als iemand naar haar kijkt terwijl ze het doet, omdat alles altijd het beste gaat als niemand kijkt, zegt ze toe, omdat het voor Berthe is en voor niemand anders, ze wil graag iets doen voor Berthe alleen, iets waar Berthe haar om vraagt, daarom probeet ze het, met haar lijf dat zoveel langer is geworden en haar borsten die last hebben van de zwaartekracht, het gaat vijf keer mis en vijf keer zegt ze: Ziet-u-wel-ik-kan-het-niet-meer-en-vroeger-kon-ik-het en de zesde keer staat ze daar op haar handen met haar voeten tegen een blinde wand aan en zegt ze in één teug: Misereatur-mei-omnipotens-Deus-et-dimittat-mihi-omnia-peccata-mea-liberet-me-ab-omni-malo-salvet-et-confirmet-in-omni-opere-bono-et-perducat-me-ad-vitam-aeternam-amen, waarna ze haar voeten weer naar de vloer laat vallen.

Less is more. “A few extremely well-chosen objectives,” Grove wrote, “impart a clear message about what we say ‘yes’ to and what we say ‘no’ to.” A limit of three to five OKRs per cycle leads companies, teams, and individuals to choose what matters most. In general, each objective should be tied to five or fewer key results. (See chapter 4, “Superpower #1: Focus and Commit to Priorities.”) Set goals from the bottom up. To promote engagement, teams and individuals should be encouraged to create roughly half of their own OKRs, in consultation with managers. When all goals are set top-down, motivation is corroded. (See chapter 7, “Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork.”) No dictating. OKRs are a cooperative social contract to establish priorities and define how progress will be measured. Even after company objectives are closed to debate, their key results continue to be negotiated. Collective agreement is essential to maximum goal achievement. (See chapter 7, “Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork.”) Stay flexible. If the climate has changed and an objective no longer seems practical or relevant as written, key results can be modified or even discarded mid-cycle. (See chapter 10, “Superpower #3: Track for Accountability.”) Dare to fail. “Output will tend to be greater,” Grove wrote, “when everybody strives for a level of achievement beyond [their] immediate grasp. . . . Such goal-setting is extremely important if what you want is peak performance from yourself and your subordinates.” While certain operational objectives must be met in full, aspirational OKRs should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable. “Stretched goals,” as Grove called them, push organizations to new heights. (See chapter 12, “Superpower #4: Stretch for Amazing.”) A tool, not a weapon. The OKR system, Grove wrote, “is meant to pace a person—to put a stopwatch in his own hand so he can gauge his own performance. It is not a legal document upon which to base a performance review.” To encourage risk taking and prevent sandbagging, OKRs and bonuses are best kept separate. (See chapter 15, “Continuous Performance Management: OKRs and CFRs.”) Be patient; be resolute. Every process requires trial and error. As Grove told his iOPEC students, Intel “stumbled a lot of times” after adopting OKRs: “We didn’t fully understand the principal purpose of it. And we are kind of doing better with it as time goes on.” An organization may need up to four or five quarterly cycles to fully embrace the system, and even more than that to build mature goal muscle.

Tom Tom: Wow, after I jumped it occurred to me, life is perfect, life is the best. It's full of magic, beauty, opportunity, and television, and surprises, lots of surprises, yeah. And then there's that stuff that everybody longs for, but they only real feel when it's gone. All that just kinda hit me. I guess you don't really see it all clearly when you're - ya know - alive.

Early on in your career, when you’re an individual contributor, you’re graded on the volume and quality of your work. Then one day, all of a sudden, you’re a manager. Let’s assume you do well and move up to manage more and more people. Now you’re no longer paid for the amount of work you do; you’re paid for the quality of decisions you make. But no one tells you the rules have changed. When you hit a wall, you think, I’ll just work harder—that’s what got me here. What you should do is more counterintuitive: Stop for a moment and shut out the noise. Close your eyes to really see what’s in front of you, and then pick the best way forward for you and your team, relative to the organization’s needs. What’s neat about OKRs is that they formalize reflection. At least once each quarter, they make contributors step back into a quiet place and consider how their decisions align with the company. People start thinking in the macro. They become more pointed and precise, because you can’t write a ninety-page OKR dissertation. You have to choose three to five things and exactly how they should be measured. Then when the day comes and someone says, “Okay, you’re a manager,” you’ve already learned how to think like one. And that’s huge.

In the ancient-wisdom literature known as the book of Ecclesiastes, written several hundred years BC, there is a wanderer I borrowed from, a sojourner who discovers that sex, drugs, money, fame … are apparently not the promised land. Instead, says the writer—maybe Solomon—these are the vanities of vanities. The best thing in life, he discovers, is to enjoy your work. To do what you love. The promised land will always be somewhere else. I think I can grasp this.

I was in that room. It might have been a rehearsal room as a new song dropped by, but soon enough it was a walk down a country lane. “Now,” said the doctor, continuing. “Pull out the feeling that makes you feel safest and strongest and describe it for me.” “I’m walking along a river with my best friend,” I said. “And everything is just as it should be. I have confidence in my footsteps; I feel I am learning judgment but not being judged. I can say anything I want. Sometimes there’s a reply; sometimes there’s not. It’s just a conversation between friends.” “And your friend,” inquired the doctor. “Who is it?” I said, “I think it’s Jesus.” I heard the doctor shuffle, nervously, in his seat. Maybe I wasn’t that deep in his hypnosis. And he asked, “Where are you?” I said, “I’m just walking down a country lane by a river. It’s not the Tolka or the Liffey or even the Mississippi. Could it be the Jordan? I’ve always had a thing about the river Jordan.” Emerging from this “deep relaxation,” I could sense that the great physician had not expected me to find Jesus in my bottom drawer. The doctor was polite

If you’re the best thing about me then why am I walking away?

They think that the record company came up with the name U2! Or they think that our manager was the person who planned our pathway to success. It couldn't be further from the truth. Paul McGuinness mentored us in principles that proved to be the best there were, and the record company helped us in our journey. But we are very much in charge of our own destiny, and have been always. I think that's really important.

Shriver brothers Robert and Mark have also found ways to support the family commitment to the disabled. With the musician Bono, Robert helped found DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa), which advocates for the eradication of poverty through education, debt reduction, development assistance, and campaigning for access to treatment for AIDS and malaria in Africa; and Mark serves as senior vice president of U.S. programs for Save the Children. Eunice’s only daughter, Maria Shriver, sits on the boards of Special Olympics and Best Buddies, and

The companies that treat their people as valued partners are the ones with the best customer service.

A tool, not a weapon. The OKR system, Grove wrote, “is meant to pace a person—to put a stopwatch in his own hand so he can gauge his own performance. It is not a legal document upon which to base a performance review.” To encourage risk taking and prevent sandbagging, OKRs and bonuses are best kept separate. (See chapter 15, “Continuous Performance Management: OKRs and CFRs.”)