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On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.
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Satoru Iwata
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If you don't innovate, You die
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Robert Iger (The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company)
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No matter what the industry you choose to ultimately invest all your time and energy in, be sure you're the owner, founder, and CEO. Remember, if you don't own it, you can't control it nor can you depend on it.
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Brandi L. Bates (Moonshine For The Soul: A Path to Strength, Wisdom, Growth, Health & Happiness)
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If you're in the business of making something, be in the business of making something great
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Robert Iger (The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company)
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One way to assess the viability of a business idea is to consider it's ability to be monetized. If something can't be monetized, it ain't a business. And if there's no path to profitability, then it has no worth.
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Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
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When you face tough times but keep on going; when you're discouraged and doubtful, but still show up; when you are not sure of what to do, but you give it you best anyway--you will, in the end, succeed. Just be willing to do whatever it takes.
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Mo Anderson (A Joy-filled Life: Lessons from a Tenant Farmer's Daughter...who Became a Ceo)
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You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can. There’s nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess. True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.
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Robert Iger (The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company)
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Understand your purpose and the belief-energy. Belief energy is the core of leadership and success. Design your belief energy for higher purpose and values. Belief energy can inspire and motivate you and others. Articulate, communicate and radiate your positive belief energy.
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Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
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Maybe this is the case for many of us: No matter who we become or what we accomplish, we still feel that we’re essentially the kid we were at some simpler time long ago. Somehow that’s the trick of leadership, too, I think, to hold on to that awareness of yourself even as the world tells you how powerful and important you are. The moment you start to believe it all too much, the moment you look yourself in the mirror and see a title emblazoned on your forehead, you’ve lost your way. That may be the hardest but also the most necessary lesson to keep in mind, that wherever you are along the path, you’re the same person you’ve always been.
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Robert Iger (The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company)
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A good leader has the ability to inspire action. If you can’t inspire people to act, you aren’t a leader.
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Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
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We need to sharpen our focus & live to the point just like a pencil.
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Robin Sharma (The Saint, the Surfer, and the CEO: A Remarkable Story about Living Your Heart's Desires)
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Remember, before they promoted to the chair of CEO, they were the best employees of their companies.
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Amit Kalantri
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It makes no sense to compare yourself with others because there will always be better & worse people than you out there. Each person has his own path to make. You are where you are now. Could you reach for the stars & have everything you want? realistically no. You may not win Olympic Gold in London 2012 , or be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company etc but you most definitely have the capacity to make YOUR life as the Masterpiece it could really be. The choice is yours...
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Pablo
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Earn your confidence, nurture it, then help to build it in others.
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Alex Malley
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Keep going, no matter what.”
--Reginald F. Lewis: Lawyer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, Chairman, CEO ---
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Reginald F. Lewis
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Never confuse a clear path with a short distance.
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Daren Martin
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Today you can be inactive, reactive, or proactive! Choose your "active" wisely.
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Daren Martin
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Stories are the single most powerful weapon any leader can arm themselves with – they are the currency of humanity. Those who tell captivating, inspiring, emotional stories rule the world.
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Steven Bartlett (The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business and Life)
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A company is a culture. A group of people brought together around a common set of values and beliefs. It’s not products or services that bind a company together. It’s not size and might that make a company strong, it’s the culture—the strong sense of beliefs and values that everyone, from the CEO to the receptionist, all share. So the logic follows, the goal is not to hire people who simply have a skill set you need, the goal is to hire people who believe what you believe.
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Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
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In terms of systems design, shapes are important. Rectangles are not common in nature. That's probably because from a systems design perspective, rectangles often degrade efficiency instead of contributing to efficiency. Yet humans have designed an entire supply chain system based on rectangles, squares and straight lines. If we want to be more efficient, we should replace those rectangles, squares and straight lines with ovals, circles and hexagons. And maybe some other nature inspired geometries.
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Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
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Successful succession is more than selecting someone with an appropriate skill set—it’s about finding someone who is in lockstep with the original cause around which the company was founded. Great second or third CEOs don’t take the helm to implement their own vision of the future; they pick up the original banner and lead the company into the next generation. That’s why we call it succession, not replacement. There is a continuity of vision.
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Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
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While CEO of P&G, John Pepper was once asked in an interview which skill or characteristic was most important to look for when hiring new employees. Was it leadership? Analytical ability? Problem solving? Collaboration? Strategic thinking? Or something else? His answer was integrity. He explained, “All the rest, we can teach them after they get here.
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Paul Smith (Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire)
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Successful Managers only who are able to manage their CEO's before they manage their teams.
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Nader Kamal
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When you make a commitment to live a life of bliss, everyday is an opportunity to live the dream awake.
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Tia Walker
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Live the dream awake.
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Tia Walker
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Making a product is just an activity, making a profit on a product is the achievement.
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Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
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Saying "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" many times doesn't fix the fact that your process is a mess and you are not addressing it even now
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Daren Martin
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A great leader not only leads, he turns followers into leaders!
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Daren Martin
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Failure doesn't define you,
Giving up does.
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- Dhinesh Kumar CEO- Point To Business Services
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Much muscle, little mind, makes you strong but terribly blind
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Daren Martin
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Own the moment or the moment will own you
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Daren Martin
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Sow strategically, reap abundantly!
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Daren Martin
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It doesn’t matter if you work at a fast food joint or if you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Your job title does not define your purpose. The size of your paycheck does not make you worthy. What makes you valuable is your contribution to the world and the legacy that you leave behind. Stop defining yourself by what you do, and start defining yourself by who you are!
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John Geiger
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Through your influence, vision, ethics and authenticity you create a better reality for your family, community and organisation, where those around you and those who follow you are inspired to dream, learn and act
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Craig Dent
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The entrepreneur of the world handles difficult situations with stress, worry and frustration relying only on the knowledge they have access to. The entrepreneur with God’s favor has an omniscient presence living inside and is blessed to have answers and solutions to tough problems flow directly to them. Having the favor of God resting on you is a wonderful position to be in, CEO! He has strategically placed us in this entrepreneurial army, not only to defeat the enemy and his advances, but to also go above-and-beyond, reaching success that few obtain.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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Tako sem se naučil,da je pomembno to, kar je v notranjosti, ne glede na to, kako čudovit je zunanji svet. In če je tvoj notranji svet neurejen in nezdrav, te ne bo osrečilo nič, kar dobiš zunaj. Če pa je tvoj notranji svet zdrav in izpolnjen, ti bodo najpreprostejše in najosnovnejše reči v zunanjem svetu napolnile srce in dušo.
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Robin Sharma (The Saint, the Surfer, and the CEO: A Remarkable Story about Living Your Heart's Desires)
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As women we’re taught to believe that the more physically appealing we look, the more love we’ll receive in return. If we can just be the perfect cook, cleaner, lover, CEO hottie – well heck, if you don’t value yourself with all those attributes, then what’s it going to take to get your low blueberry muffin self-esteem recipe to rise every morning?
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Sadiqua Hamdan (Happy Am I. Holy Am I. Healthy Am I.)
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Let me repeat, if someone has the means to pay you and simply does not, they do not deserve your business. In fact, it is no longer a business transaction. I believe the term would be slavery. God clearly states that the deceptive actions of these people are a sin. Leviticus, 19:13 says, “You must not cheat your neighbor or rob him. You must not keep a hired worker’s salary all night until morning.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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Not everyone is going to be a cheerleader for you! Not everyone is going to have your back or support you. In fact, some people are going to be downright bold and say, “You are not going to make it.” You should thank those people. They are proof that you are doing something right. The devil can see success and every time a jab comes at you, he is indirectly cluing you in to the fact that greatness lies ahead and he does not want you to get there.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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So often, we look at lacking as a negative thing, but do you know God is looking for people who lack? He seeks out those who are missing something. He does this because the more you lack, the more He can increase. The more you miss, the more He can fill in. God is not necessarily looking for rocket scientists and brain surgeons to start businesses. You do not need your master’s degree or a million dollars to start a business. What God is looking for are willing saints to yield their destinies.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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His direction may not be a booming thunder or a voice in your ear. It may be a high-risk loan application going through, a referral seemingly out of nowhere or a scholarship award for something you were not qualified for. If these sorts of things are happening, God is creating a path for you. He is providing confirmation that tells you, “This is right!” Isaiah, 30:21 proves this to be true, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,“This is the way; walk in it.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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Don't wait until your on Broadway. Or until you reach the Olympics. Or until you're CEO of a major company. Don't wait until you're the president of something, or for the day when your life looks perfect to you and everyone you know. As I like to say: "Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it." Just kidding, that's a quote from Salvador Dali. I do however like to tell people, especially regarding writing and deadlines: "Don't be perfect, just be done." Which is yet another way of saying: "Don't worry so much.
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Lauren Graham (In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It)
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Have you ever met someone who is always negative? Every time you speak to them, something is wrong. They are sick, broke, been lied on, being treated unfairly, and so on. Have you ever noticed how those people genuinely experience one bad situation after another? You think to yourself, “How is it that everything wrong seems to happen to this person?” The answer is simple; that person speaks their outcome into existence. Proverbs, 18:7 shows us that, “A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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When the sun sets at night and you lay your head down on your pillow, you must believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that your business will be successful. More than anyone, you, the business owner, should have incredible faith that you will experience prosperity. This journey is not about following a popular path that leads to fame and fortune, instead, it is about creating an extension of God’s kingdom right here on earth. As beacons of light and salt of the earth, Christians should provide an example of what true victory means to the rest of the world.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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Being an entrepreneur might seem like the scariest thing in the world to pursue, and those around you who appear to be unsupportive are the same people who wish that they could do what you are about to do. Facing fears means not being afraid of people who may ridicule you if you fall. Use those butterflies and jitters to fuel your fearless actions. Successful business owners do not let fear stop them, and they do not create fictional scenarios about how and when they will fail. As business owners, if we are ever to assume, let them be positive assumptions.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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What you are asking God to do will induce a major impact on your life. That major impact cannot happen with minor faith. He will carry out His divine plan by providing you with opportunities to advance yourself in Him. Jesus said, in Luke, 10:19, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” He will teach you the skills you need to be a force in your industry, but He will not force you into success. You must reach out and walk through those doors, which are open just for you.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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Whenever the occasional doubt starts to creep into my mind about my artistic ability, I start to think about the reality of having the greatest artist ever living inside of me. The One who created the orchid, peacock and the human circulatory system is the same God who gives me ideas for my next logo project. The God who parted the Red Sea is the same God who knows Photoshop. The God who raised Lazurus from the dead is the same God who brings new clients to me. He can do anything! If we want to talk about a fear of failing, we have to talk about being blessed to know the One who can do anything but fail.
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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God wants us to use our resources to help others, but He does not want us to be naïve. Use the business, common and spiritual sense that God has blessed you with to stand up to people with unfair business practices. Study His word to see how He handles the enemy when it tries to disguise itself as a supportive customer of yours. The same family member asking you for a free service is the same person that would never think to negotiate their electric bill. The same church member who wants a discount is the same person who will go to a restaurant and not only pay the full bill, but tip the waitress on top of it! Do you not deserve that same respect and consideration?
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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PayPal to a confident CEO who commands the respect of thousands. “I think there are ways he has dramatically improved over time,” said Thiel. Most impressive to Thiel has been Musk’s ability to find bright, ambitious people and lure them to his companies. “He has the most talented people in the aerospace industry working for him, and the same case can be made for Tesla, where, if you’re a talented mechanical engineer who likes building cars, then you’re going to Tesla because it’s probably the only company in the U.S. where you can do interesting new things. Both companies were designed with this vision of motivating a critical mass of talented people to work on inspiring things.
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Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Inventing the Future)
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Reading this book, you will probably get motivated to take a major faith step, but life can stare you back in the face and tell you that you are stupid to believe that God will answer your prayer. The bottom line is, GOD CAN DO IT, and He will do it if you let Him. Numbers, 23:19 states, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” Your entrepreneurial dream may seem impossible, but God can do it. Your finances might be in the worst shape that you have ever experienced in your life, but God can fix it. You might not have the education or the skill that you know is required to follow through on your dream, but God can supplement it. Will you trust Him to do it?
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
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Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience."
Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is.
Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others.
The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success.
Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all.
Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace.
Loyalty is not demanded; it is created.
Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message.
The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel.
The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way.
People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes.
Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk.
The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.
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Dan Carrison (Semper Fi: Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way)
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Hardy reinforces his narrative with stories of heroes who didn’t have the right education, the right connections, and who could have been counted out early as not having the DNA for success: “Richard Branson has dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student. Steve Jobs was born to two college students who didn’t want to raise him and gave him up for adoption. Mark Cuban was born to an automobile upholsterer. He started as a bartender, then got a job in software sales from which he was fired.”8 The list goes on. Hardy reminds his readers that “Suze Orman’s dad was a chicken farmer. Retired General Colin Powell was a solid C student. Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, was born in a housing authority in the Bronx … Barbara Corcoran started as a waitress and admits to being fired from more jobs than most people hold in a lifetime. Pete Cashmore, the CEO of Mashable, was sickly as a child and finished high school two years late due to medical complications. He never went to college.” What do each of these inspiring leaders and storytellers have in common? They rewrote their own internal narratives and found great success. “The biographies of all heroes contain common elements. Becoming one is the most important,”9 writes Chris Matthews in Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero. Matthews reminds his readers that young John F. Kennedy was a sickly child and bedridden for much of his youth. And what did he do while setting school records for being in the infirmary? He read voraciously. He read the stories of heroes in the pages of books by Sir Walter Scott and the tales of King Arthur. He read, and dreamed of playing the hero in the story of his life. When the time came to take the stage, Jack was ready.
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Carmine Gallo (The Storyteller's Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don't)
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SHEENA BRADY CEO of Tease Tea, merchant success lead at Shopify When you’re working two jobs at once and you’re trying very, very hard not to multitask.
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Benjamin Spall (My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired)
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When workers within an organization are making decisions with the same intuition as their leader, that is a hallmark of success. That is one of the reasons you’re training people to be leaders in the first place. Your job as the CEO is to align and inspire everyone and then get out of the way and let them run.
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Cameron Herold (Vivid Vision: A Remarkable Tool for Aligning Your Business Around a Shared Vision of The)
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the autonomous-driving side of things, Alphabet (formerly Google), which has logged several million self-driving-car test miles, continues to lead the pack. At the end of 2016, it created a new business division, called Waymo, for its autonomous driving technology. In May 2017, Waymo and Lyft announced that they would work together on developing the technology, and later in the year, Alphabet invested $1 billion in the start-up. Others, like Cruise Automation (which GM acquired for $1 billion) and Comma.ai, which offers open-source autonomous driving technology in the same vein as Google’s Android mobile operating system, are chasing hard. Baidu, China’s leading Internet search company, has an autonomous-driving research center in Sunnyvale. Byton—backed by China’s Tencent, Foxconn, and the China Harmony New Energy auto retailer group—has an office in Mountain View, as does Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-sharing company in which Apple invested $1 billion. Many of these companies have taken not just inspiration but also talent from Tesla. Part of the value of an innovation cluster like Silicon Valley lies in the dispersal of intellectual labor from one node to the next. For instance, PayPal is well known in the Valley for producing a number of high performers who left the company to start, join, or invest in others. The so-called PayPal Mafia includes Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn; Max Levchin, whose most recent of several start-ups is the financial services company Affirm; Peter Thiel, a Facebook board member and President Trump–supporting venture capitalist who cofounded “big data” company Palantir; Jeremy Stoppelman, who started reviews site Yelp; Keith Rabois, who was chief operating officer at Square and then joined Khosla Ventures; David Sacks, who sold Yammer to Microsoft for $1.2 billion and later became CEO at Zenefits; Jawed Karim, who cofounded YouTube; and one Elon Musk.
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Hamish McKenzie (Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil)
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Kirkus (starred review): A lucid, expertly researched biography of the brilliant Nikola Tesla. (Readers) will absolutely enjoy (Munson’s) sympathetic, insightful portrait.
Booklist: Celebratory, comprehensive profile. ….A well-written, insightful addition to the legacy of this still-underappreciated visionary genius.
Library Journal: Entrepreneurs, inventors, engineers, and futurists will find this biography inspiring.
Gretchen Bakke (author of "The Grid"): Munson has provided us with an intimate tapestry of Tesla's life, personality, and inventions. Filled with quotes, and clearly researched with great care, Munson brings Tesla to life, not as a superhero but as a man—both ordinary and extraordinary. What surprised me, and proved to be one of the great pleasures of the book was to realize how much Tesla’s story is an immigrant story.
Anne Pramaggiore (CEO of Commonwealth Edison): Tesla is an exactingly-researched history and wonderfully crafted tale of one of the most important and fascinating visionaries of the technological age. This book’s teachings have never been more relevant than in today’s world of digital transformation.
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Richard Munson (Tesla: Inventor of the Modern)
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Now consider what a company is. A company is a culture. A group of people brought together around a common set of values and beliefs. It’s not products or services that bind a company together. It’s not size and might that make a company strong, it’s the culture—the strong sense of beliefs and values that everyone, from the CEO to the receptionist, all share. So the logic follows, the goal is not to hire people who simply have a skill set you need, the goal is to hire people who believe what you believe.
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Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
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Knowledge changes destiny and books inspire wisdom.
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Joan Toth CEO Pepsico
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Jim Hackett, the CEO of Steelcase, is one of a small number of enlightened business leaders who understand that a steady flow of innovative products rests upon an underlying culture of innovation.
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Tim Brown (Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation)
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Jim Hackett, the CEO of Steelcase, is one of a small number of enlightened business leaders who understand that a steady flow of innovative products rests upon an underlying culture of innovation. While he is excited by the challenge of designing new products, he is even more excited by the challenge of designing the organization itself.
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Tim Brown (Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation)
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Strelsin asked CEOs an easy question: “How would you describe the most important aspect of your role in the organization?” The CEOs whose companies were inconsistent in their performance prioritized creating a vision, building a specific corporate culture, and developing a specific business strategy. But when Strelsin posed the same question to CEOs of industry-leading companies, most said that they had made it their personal mission, above all else, to simplify the lives of those who worked below them. They pursued simplification in a number of ways: they simplified their strategies so their peers and subordinates could focus on the most important challenges. They simplified their hierarchies, so that their companies could execute their strategies more effectively. They made it a priority to communicate in clear prose that inspired everyone to join in their company’s respective mission. In short, the most successful executives in Strelsin’s study excelled in their jobs because they regarded themselves not merely as CEOs, but as chief simplifiers.
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Lisa Bodell (Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters)
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company’s managers are often labelled executives who passively execute routine activities. It’s little wonder that the public objects to CEO pay if millions are given to managers who simply execute. We sometimes use the word leaders to highlight how they can pursue new strategic directions and inspire their workforce.
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Alex Edmans (Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit – Updated and Revised)
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One of the defining characteristics of Transformational Leadership is the enormous personal impact it has on people, on their values, on their ways of thinking about work and of their interpretation of events. Transformational leaders are EMPTHETIC. They understand the needs of others, their thoughts and feelings, They encourage and inspire people to transcend their own self interests for the higher collective. purpose, vision and mission.
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Lynda Bleazard
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Product evangelism is, as Guy Kawasaki put it years ago, “selling the dream.” It's helping people imagine the future and inspiring them to help create that future. If you're a startup founder, a CEO, or a head of product, this is a very big part of your job, and you'll have a hard time assembling a strong team if you don't get good at it.
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Marty Cagan (Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group))
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Shelly Shami is a young CEO and accomplished businesswoman destined to go far in life. Her core values are consistency, investing in people, and lifelong learning. Shelly Shami holds the ethos: never settle, go for the best, close to her heart. These are her father's words that inspired her to greatness. Shelly Shami enjoys reading Forbes and learning about how other CEOs deal with business growth and people management in their industries.
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Shelly Shami
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Monica Zent is an experienced entrepreneur, investor, businesswoman, and trusted legal advisor to leading global bMonica Zent is an experienced entrepreneur, investor, businesswoman, and trusted legal advisor to leading global brands, over a period that spans decades. Her most recent venture is the founder and CEO of Foxwordy Inc. She is also the founder of ZentLaw, one of the nation's top alternative law firms. Zent is an investor in real estate & startups and dedicates her time and talent to various charitable causes. She is a diversity and inclusion advocate, inspiring all people to pursue their dreams.
rands, over a period that spans decades. Her most recent venture is the founder and CEO of Foxwordy Inc. She is also the founder of ZentLaw, one of the nation’s top alternative law firms. Zent is an investor in real estate & startups and dedicates her time and talent to various charitable causes. She is a diversity and inclusion advocate, inspiring all people to pursue their dreams.
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Monica Zent
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Dropbox, the cloud storage company mentioned previously that Sean Ellis was from, cleverly implemented a double-sided incentivized referral program. When you referred a friend, not only did you get more free storage, but your friend got free storage as well (this is called an “in-kind” referral program). Dropbox prominently displayed their novel referral program on their site and made it easy for people to share Dropbox with their friends by integrating with all the popular social media platforms. The program immediately increased the sign-up rate by an incredible 60 percent and, given how cheap storage servers are, cost the company a fraction of what they were paying to acquire clients through channels such as Google ads. One key takeaway is, when practicable, offer in-kind referrals that benefit both parties. Although Sean Ellis coined the term “growth hacking,” the Dropbox growth hack noted above was actually conceived by Drew Houston, Dropbox’s founder and CEO, who was inspired by PayPal’s referral program that he recalled from when he was in high school. PayPal gave you ten dollars for every friend you referred, and your friend received ten dollars for signing up as well. It was literally free money. PayPal’s viral marketing campaign was conceived by none other than Elon Musk (now billionaire, founder of SpaceX, and cofounder of Tesla Motors). PayPal’s growth hack enabled the company to double their user base every ten days and to become a success story that the media raved about. One key takeaway is that a creative and compelling referral program can not only fuel growth but also generate press.
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Raymond Fong (Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley's Best Kept Secret)
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When someone is walking beside us, we have more courage to walk into the unknown and to risk the dark and messy places in our journey.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Small acts of kindness and love rippled out and had more of an impact than they ever could have imagined.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Thank you for believing that all humans have intrinsic value and that our job has society is to ensure that all are empowered and have enough.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Can we measure love? Or connection? Or beauty? Or the feeling of being alive?
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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How can I do my work from a place of love?
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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But there is value in telling a story from the perspective of the mundane, from the real perspective that many of us are in for most of our lives.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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They say when you put language to something, it creates meaning. Language creates the ability for someone to communicate and explore an idea more fully in a way that is not possible without language.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Enoughness isn’t necessarily about getting rich; it’s about the idea that God provides for our needs, and it is our responsibility to share with those who don’t have enough any abundance God has blessed us with.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Systems themselves are not bad or evil; in fact, God seems to love systems and works within organized and integrated networks! ... It is people who create a system for both good and evil purposes or take an inherently good system and change the rules to benefit only a few.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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External failure has no real correlation to spiritual failure. For a spiritual entrepreneur, external failure is often essential for spiritual success.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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It’s helpful to keep in mind that your road is unique, and simply being on it is enough. If you follow God’s light and allow him to carry you when you are too exhausted to go on, you will not get lost, even though you will certainly feel that way many times.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Understanding who we are, how God created us, how we grow, and how we give those gifts back to others is core work of the spiritual entrepreneur.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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There are as many unique paths to self-knowledge as there are souls in the universe. Therefore, one-sized advice can never fit all. One path cannot be judged by another path, and we must struggle to find our own way with God.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Since love is the fundamental energy of the universe, aiming to expand love grows us—not just ourselves personally, but everyone and everything around us.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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It is my hope that entrepreneurship can become a spiritual path for many who feel called but don’t believe they were worthy or haven’t been able to find the capital to make it happen.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Freedom is essential for any system to work, and love is the foundation for freedom.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Liminal space is the norm on the path of a spiritual entrepreneur because the nature of doing something tangible in the world, while maintaining a spiritual focus, requires constant transformation.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Spiritual entrepreneurship is a collective community working together to expand love.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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The collective action of spiritual entrepreneurs and their allies can contribute to creating a world that feels like heaven on earth.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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A one-size-fits-all approach is no longer an option for humanity. The world is too diverse, vast, and expansive, so we should expect spiritual entrepreneurship to come in all shapes and sizes.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Inherent in this new type of distribution of wealth is trust that providing more freedom to humans ultimately drives positive innovation and growth.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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The rise of spiritual entrepreneurship will bring massive innovation to solving the world’s most pressing problems in unique ways.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Despite the despair and suffering still on our planet, humanity is moving toward unity, justice, love, and peace.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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We can’t rely on our own limited vision but must seek to see through heaven’s eyes.
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Sheri A. Smith (Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Raw Reflections of a Female CEO)
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Always Keep Learning
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Ajay Dhunna (How To Win Customers With Google Ads: A Practical Jargon Free Guide For CEOs And Business Owners)
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True wisdom lies not in knowing all the answers, but in understanding which questions are worth asking." - Michael Eastwood
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Michael Eastwood (CEO-Stories: Children Employed by Owners)
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If you want to change someone’s belief, don’t attack it, make them a direct witness to positive new evidence that will both inspire them and counteract the negative effects of their old beliefs. Unchallenged limiting beliefs are the greatest barrier between who we are and who we could be. Stop telling yourself you’re not qualified, good enough or worthy. Growth happens when you start doing the things you’re not qualified to do.
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Steven Bartlett (The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business and Life)
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ead like Beyoncé, hustle like Dwayne Johnson, and slay like Rihanna. You’re the CEO of your life, the rockstar of your own show, and the trendsetter of your destiny. So, put on your crown, channel your inner boss babe, and strut your stuff like the fierce and fabulous leader you were born to be. Life’s too short for mediocrity, darling. Embrace your power, command your domain, and let your light shine bright like a diamond in a world full of mere pebbles. You’ve got this!
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Life is Positive
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Lead like Beyoncé, hustle like Dwayne Johnson, and slay like Rihanna. You’re the CEO of your life, the rockstar of your own show, and the trendsetter of your destiny. So, put on your crown, channel your inner boss, babe, and strut your stuff like the fierce and fabulous leader you were born to be. Life’s too short for mediocrity, darling. Embrace your power, command your domain, and let your light shine bright like a diamond in a world full of mere pebbles. You’ve got this!
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Life is Positive
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The more he thought about space, the more important its exploration seemed to him. He felt as if the public had lost some of its ambition and hope for the future. The average person might see space exploration as a waste of time and effort and rib him for talking about the subject, but Musk thought about interplanetary travel in a very earnest way. He wanted to inspire the masses and reinvigorate their passion for science, conquest, and the promise of technology. His fears that mankind had lost much of its will to push the boundaries were reinforced one day when Musk went to the NASA website. He’d expected to find a detailed plan for exploring Mars and instead found bupkis. “At first I thought, jeez, maybe I’m just looking in the wrong place,” Musk once told Wired. “Why was there no plan, no schedule? There was nothing. It seemed crazy.” Musk believed that the very idea of America was intertwined with humanity’s desire to explore. He found it sad that the American agency tasked with doing audacious things in space and exploring new frontiers as its mission seemed to have no serious interest in investigating Mars at all. The spirit of Manifest Destiny had been deflated or maybe even come to a depressing end, and hardly anyone seemed to care. Like
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Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
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The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design. ~ Elon Musk
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Chris Johnston (Elon Musk: 101 Greatest Business Lessons, Inspiration and Quotes from Elon Musk (Business Books, Entrepreneurship, How To Be Successful))
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Initially working out of our home in Northern California, with a garage-based lab, I wrote a one page letter introducing myself and what we had and posted it to the CEOs of twenty-two Fortune 500 companies. Within a couple of weeks, we had received seventeen responses, with invitations to meetings and referrals to heads of engineering departments. I met with those CEOs or their deputies and received an enthusiastic response from almost every individual. There was also strong interest from engineers given the task of interfacing with us. However, support from their senior engineering and product development managers was less forthcoming. We learned that many of the big companies we had approached were no longer manufacturers themselves but assemblers of components or were value-added reseller companies, who put their famous names on systems that other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) had built. That didn't daunt us, though when helpful VPs of engineering at top-of-the-food-chain companies referred us to their suppliers, we found that many had little or no R & D capacity, were unwilling to take a risk on outside ideas, or had no room in their already stripped-down budgets for innovation. Our designs found nowhere to land. It became clear that we needed to build actual products and create an apples-to-apples comparison before we could interest potential manufacturing customers.
Where to start? We created a matrix of the product areas that we believed PAX could impact and identified more than five hundred distinct market sectors-with potentially hundreds of thousands of products that we could improve. We had to focus. After analysis that included the size of the addressable market, ease of access, the cost and time it would take to develop working prototypes, the certifications and metrics of the various industries, the need for energy efficiency in the sector, and so on, we prioritized the list to fans, mixers, pumps, and propellers. We began hand-making prototypes as comparisons to existing, leading products.
By this time, we were raising working capital from angel investors. It's important to note that this was during the first half of the last decade. The tragedy of September 11, 2001, and ensuing military actions had the world's attention. Clean tech and green tech were just emerging as terms, and energy efficiency was still more of a slogan than a driver for industry. The dot-com boom had busted. We'd researched venture capital firms in the late 1990s and found only seven in the United States investing in mechanical engineering inventions. These tended to be expansion-stage investors that didn't match our phase of development. Still, we were close to the famous Silicon Valley and had a few comical conversations with venture capitalists who said they'd be interested in investing-if we could turn our technology into a website.
Instead, every six months or so, we drew up a budget for the following six months. Via a growing network of forward-thinking private investors who could see the looming need for dramatic changes in energy efficiency and the performance results of our prototypes compared to currently marketed products, we funded the next phase of research and business development.
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Jay Harman (The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation)
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It’s the opposite of people who live waiting for life to come to them. Then you’re just a victim or you’re a lottery winner, so I choose to live life with a plan or a goal. I lay out the steps to get there and then assess them constantly. But usually I only get a clear snapshot of my plan when I look in the rearview mirror and see what I did.” - Beachbody CEO Carl Daikeler
Excerpt From: Tony Horton. “The Big Picture: 11 Laws That Will Change Your Life.
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Tony Horton (The Big Picture: 11 Laws That Will Change Your Life)