Leap Motivational Quotes

The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.

Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.

Sometimes to change a situation you are in requires you to take a giant leap. But, you won't be able to fly unless you are willing to transform.

Nobody thought it could be done, so nobody had tried before. Standing with one foot in the abyss and the other with a foothold in her dreams, she stood on the edge of a cliff. She took one look behind and with one last deep breath, she leapt with reckless certainty and decisive confidence. Blurring through the sky, for a moment she looked like she would fade into darkness, but in the very last moment when everyone else had given up on her, from her back spread wings. With a leap of faith, she learned to fly.

How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets.

We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.

Take a giant leap into that which sets your soul on fire and never retire from that leap.

Take a leap of faith on your dreams, not for me and not for the society, just for yourself.

Don't be afraid to wake up your dream... give it a hard nudge, a toss of cold water... make it leap, make it fly. Dreams won't come to life without action.

Taking a leap of faith is better than taking a leap of doubt.

A life spent at the edge of the pier is a life full of regret, a life full of fear.

You'll always be curious yet deliriously sinking into whatever your nightmare is until you let your wings know you're serious by leaping into your wildest dreams of self love.

Take bigger leaps. Yes, quit your job if it’s holding you back. Put yourself in a position where failure can’t be an option. In order to do that, you have to have something that truly moves and motivates you.

Sometimes we take leaps of faith, and sometimes we take tiny steps. Even the tiniest step can require a lot of courage. Like climbing out of denial and admitting my real need for help. Like trusting someone who said I wouldn’t die from eating a bowl of pasta, and taking another bite. Like reaching for a pen or a yoga mat when what I really wanted to do was reach for a cookie. Like searching for a smile in my heart when my mind was busy screaming about how sad and serious I should be.

The real flight of this hawk is impending. Still,this bird is yet to be tested for real. Though I have leaped over the seas, well,the entire sky is still remaining to fly. And make sure that ,i am gonna do it with all my heart and all my soul. #loveyoourlife #liveyourlife #hvFUN

because expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time.

Great Leadership sometimes requires taking a step backward in order to take a leap forward.

Not a single bird makes its first leap from a tree without faith.

The journey to understanding begins with a leap of faith.

Some of the miracles you need are a leap of faith away. Just pray and wait.

Only a bet on the impossible makes sense. It is an act of faith and courage requiring an irrational leap over reason. A man wins simply by making such a bet.

You will receive your biggest blessings outside of your comfort zone. So get comfortable with constant change, feeling uneasy, and taking many calculated or random risks. Take a leap of faith.

Making these choices [to attend school instead of skipping], as it turned out, wasn't about willpower. I always admired people who “willed” themselves to do something, because I have never felt I was one of them. If sheer will were enough by itself, it would have been enough a long time ago, back on University Avenue, I figured. It wasn't, not for me anyway. Instead, I needed something to motivate me. I needed a few things that I could think about in my moments of weakness that would cause me to throw off the blanket and walk through the front door. More than will, I needed something to inspire me. One thing that helped was a picture I kept in mind, this image that I used over and over whenever I was faced with these daily choices. I pictured a runner running on a racetrack. The image was set in the summertime and the racetrack was a reddish orange, divided in white racing stripes to flag the runners’ columns. Only, the runner in my mental image did not run alongside others; she ran solo, with no one watching her. And she did not run a free and clear track, she ran one that required her to jump numerous hurdles, which made her break into a heavy sweat under the sun. I used this image every time I thought of things that frustrated me: the heavy books, my crazy sleep schedule, the question of where I would sleep and what I would eat. To overcome these issues I pictured my runner bolting down the track, jumping hurdles toward the finish line. Hunger, hurdle. Finding sleep, hurdle, schoolwork, hurdle. If I closed my eyes I could see the runner’s back, the movement of her sinewy muscles, glistening with sweat, bounding over the hurdles, one by one. On mornings when I did not want to get out of bed, I saw another hurdle to leap over. This way, obstacles became a natural part of the course, an indication that I was right where I needed to be, running the track, which was entirely different from letting obstacles make me believe I was off it. On a racing track, why wouldn't there be hurdles? With this picture in mind—using the hurdles to leap forward toward my diploma—I shrugged the blanket off, went through the door, and got myself to school.

Half the failures of this world arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping.

You get told to look before you leap. But if you are too careful you may end up just looking.

Second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.

Penis Maaaaan! Able to leap tall buildings … owing mostly to his profound motivation not to get snagged on a lightning rod.

Take a leap of faith right now and know that you can live the life of your dreams by making a positive decision.

Small steps of faith add up to great leaps of success.

Find the game you like to play - not just to win but because it clicks with you differently.

Only the neurosurgeon dares to improve upon five billion years of evolution in a few hours. The human brain. A trillion nerve cells storing electrical patterns more numerous than the water molecules of the world’s oceans. The soul’s tapestry lies woven in the brain’s nerve threads. Delicate, inviolate, the brain floats serenely in a bone vault like the crown jewel of biology. What motivated the vast leap in intellectual horsepower between chimp and man? Between tree dweller and moon walker? Is the brain a gift from God, or simply the jackpot of a trillion rolls of DNA dice?

Find what you love, find it for a long, and don’t settle until you find it. Find something you would love to fail in – because that’s where you will have the most chance (in each successive attempt) to make a big win.

We as a human community need to develop a new competency. We need to move from a single-cell social organism to a multicellular social organism. While making this evolutionary leap is no easy task, staring into the abyss is a strong motivator.

One way or another, I regard it as almost inevitable that either a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe will cripple the Earth at some point in the next 1,000 years which, as geological time goes, is the mere blink of an eye. By then I hope and believe that our ingenious race will have found a way to slip the surly bonds of Earth and will therefore survive the disaster. The same of course may not be possible for the millions of other species that inhabit the Earth, and that will be on our conscience as a race. I think we are acting with reckless indifference to our future on planet Earth. At the moment, we have nowhere else to go, but in the long run the human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket before we learn how to escape from Earth. But we are, by nature, explorers. Motivated by curiosity. This is a uniquely human quality. It is this driven curiosity that sent explorers to prove the Earth is not flat and it is the same instinct that sends us to the stars at the speed of thought, urging us to go there in reality. And whenever we make a great new leap, such as the Moon landings, we elevate humanity, bring people and nations together, usher in new discoveries and new technologies. To leave Earth demands a concerted global approach—everyone should join in. We need to rekindle the excitement of the early days of space travel in the 1960s. The technology is almost within our grasp. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth. If we stay, we risk being annihilated.

She walks down the hall and climbs into her hammock, giving it a swing as she leaves the ground. Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations. Caravaggio has for instance given her something. His motive, a drama, and a stolen image.

Precisely how the electrical signals and chemical reactions occurring second by second in the human body make the leap to thought, motivation, impulse—where the physical machinery of man stops and the ghost in the machine, consciousness, begins—is not truly a scientific question, for the simple reason that we cannot design an experiment to capture, measure or duplicate it. For all we have learned, the fact remains that we do not understand in any meaningful way why people do what they do, and likely never will.

Declaring that we will master our fears is the first great leap toward freedom. Our vitality, growth, and destiny all demand that we can topple fear. As so much hangs in the balance, let us better understand what fear really is. Fear is the human motive of aversion. Fear doesn’t help us commit to higher aims. It doesn’t help us imagine greatness. Its sole aim is immediate release from threat, strain, or pain. It often becomes a by-all-means-necessary approach to controlling any given situation so that the body—but most often the ego—can feel safe and unchallenged.

Let me tell you, there is no other way than to live like this – Love with abandon Laugh uncontrollably Write your heart out Dance in the rain (try it!) Sit and try hatching ideas Fall madly in love with someone Move to the drumbeats of your heart Feel the earth beneath your bare feet Go cloud watching, star gazing and moonbaths Have walks along the beach during sunset or sunrise Overnight with fireflies, savor the evening breeze Find at least one snowflake or a miracle Excite your senses, taste everything Indulge in higher pleasures Smell the morning mist Travel. Travel. Travel. Take a leap of faith Live with Passion Bare your soul Why not? Be bold Revel LIVE

When you take the leap into Enlightened Entitlement and decide that you deserve everything you want and are willing to put in the effort for, and then you actively believe in your limitless capabilities instead of buying into your self-imposed limitations, you build the energy and motivation needed to improve your life. The more you do this, the more authentic you realize it is—and, in turn, the more faith you have in yourself. You know that you are capable of anything because you dictate what you can and cannot do. Not your past. Not your parents. Not society. Only you. Making and maintaining these two decisions over an extended period of time is how you break free of your innate conflict between the desire to be limitless and your perceived limitations.

Everything you desire unfolds in the present moment. The past is gone, the future unwritten. The Magic is in Now! Be present, Daydreamers! Immerse yourself in the beauty of your current reality. This is where magic happens, where desires transform into magnificent experiences. Darling listen – stop waiting for some future version of yourself to be something that you are not now. Instead, be so present that you forget about what hasn’t manifested yet (what hasn’t come to life yet). This is the real Manifestation technique…. This is when the big leaps happen. This is when your desires manifest. Sweetheart, the present moment is like fertile ground. It’s where our dreams take root, where our actions have the most impact. Don't miss the power of “Right Now.” May today be filled with unexpected miracles, blissful moments & perhaps, the fulfillment of a long-held wish. Blessings!

I think we are acting with reckless indifference to our future on planet Earth. At the moment, we have nowhere else to go, but in the long run the human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket before we learn how to escape from Earth. But we are, by nature, explorers. Motivated by curiosity. This is a uniquely human quality. It is this driven curiosity that sent explorers to prove the Earth is not flat and it is the same instinct that sends us to the stars at the speed of thought, urging us to go there in reality. And whenever we make a great new leap, such as the Moon landings, we elevate humanity, bring people and nations together, usher in new discoveries and new technologies. To leave Earth demands a concerted global approach—everyone should join in. We need to rekindle the excitement of the early days of space travel in the 1960s. The technology is almost within our grasp. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth. If we stay, we risk being annihilated.

I glanced across the room at Thaddeus seated at a long table within a group of shop keepers, and I contemplated him strongly. My heart leaped in my chest at the mere sight of him. I felt myself overcome. The acts of kindness and sweet attention and gratifying moments of passion afforded me by this man since the day of our marriage were purely pleasing. To be loved was a desirous affair! It was the aim of every beating heart! I nearly cast aside my concerns and allowed myself to be consumed by these agreeable sentiments except for one thing: I could not forget how stripped of power and dignity I had felt that very morning. Thaddeus had essentially commanded me to sit and stay like a dog. And I had heeded my master without so much as a growl! This was not me. No one stayed me. I watched those at the table grow more intensely involved in the details of a trade agreement I cared nothing about. Such business bartering was always selfishly motivated. When it appeared that my husband’s attention was engrossed on a point of aggressive negotiation, I excused myself from the weaving party and slipped out the back door. I turned down the alleyway and hurried to a crumbling chimney flue that was easy enough to climb. Almost immediately, a fit of anxiety gripped at my chest, and I felt as if a war was being waged in my gut—a battle between my desire to protect what harmony existed in my marriage and the selfish want to reclaim an ounce of the independence I had lost. This painful struggle nearly persuaded me to reconsider my childish act of defiance. Why was I stupidly jeopardizing my marriage? For what purpose? To stand upon a rooftop in sheer rebellion? Was I really that needy? That proud? I could hear my husband’s command echoing in my mind—no kind persuasion, but a strict order to keep my feet on the ground. I understood his cautious reasoning, and I didn’t doubt he was acting out of concern for my safety, but I was not some fragile, incapable, defenseless creature in need of a controlling overseer. What irked me most was how my natural defenses had failed me. And the only way I could see to restore my confidence was to prove I had not lost the courage and ability to make my own choices and carry them out. Perhaps this act of defiance was childish, but it was remedial as well.

It does something to you when you are running close to what you perceive as our limit (back then, I still topped at 40 percent) and there is someone else out there who makes the difficult look effortless. It was obvious that his preparedness was several levels above our own. Captain Connolly did not show up to simply get through the program and graduate so he could collect some wings for his uniform and belong to the unspoken fraternity of supposed badasses at Fort Campbell. He came to explore what he was made of and grow. That required a willingness to set a new standard wherever possible and make a statement, not necessarily to our dumb asses, but to himself. He was respectful to all the instructors and the school, but he was not there to be led... Most people love standards. It gives the brain something to focus on, which helps us reach a place of achievement. Organizational structure and atta' boys from our instructors or bosses keep us motivated to perform and to move up on that bell curve. Captain Connolly did not require external motivation. He trained to his own standard and used the existing structure for his own purposes. Air Assault School became his own personal octagon, where he could test himself on a level even the instructors hadn't imagined. For the next nine days, he put his head down and quietly went about the business of smashing every single standard at Air Assault School. He saw the bar that the instructors pointed to and the rest of us were trying to tap as a hurdle to leap over, and he did it time and again. He understood that his rank only meant something if he sought out a different certification: an invisible badge that says, "I am the example. Follow me, motherfuckers, and I will show you that there is more to this life than so-called authority and stripes or candy on a uniform. I'll show you what true ambition looks like beyond all the external structure in a place of limitless mental growth." He didn't say any of that. He didn't run his mouth at all. I can't recall him uttering word one in ten fucking days, but through his performance and extreme dedication, he dropped breadcrumbs for anybody who was awake and aware enough to follow him. He flashed his tool kit. He showed us what potent, silent, exemplary leadership looked like. He checked into every Gold Group run, which was led by the fastest instructor in that school, and volunteered to be the first to carry the flag. p237

I have been working in science publishing for most of my adult life. I lost my interest and ability to work, as I could not focus on reading emails and could not find the motivation to write. My interest in science was almost reduced to zero, as I couldn’t see the relevance of it anymore. Before awakening, my belief in science and science publishing was because of its objective truth. I then experienced how irrelevant scientific ideas and any other rational concepts are when it comes down to holding truth or reality.

When we are in a deeply spiritual transition we can lose interest in work, social interactions, and other life activities. We can feel lost when a familiar enthusiasm has vanished or we struggle to find the motivation to engage the world. This is a stage of awakening. It can last for a long time, and our old drives will not return in the same familiar forms. Peter was thirty-eight when he had an abrupt and intense energy awakening and psychic opening.

But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to shift a person’s motivation. In the short term, in fact, it can be surprisingly easy. Let’s stay in the candy aisle for a bit longer and consider a couple of experiments done decades ago involving IQ and M&M’s. In the first test, conducted in northern California in the late 1960s, a researcher named Calvin Edlund selected seventy-nine children between the ages of five and seven, all from “low-middle class and lower-class homes.” The children were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group. First, they all took a standard version of the Stanford-Binet IQ test. Seven weeks later, they took a similar test, but this time the kids in the experimental group were given one M&M for each correct answer. On the first test, the two groups were evenly matched on IQ. On the second test, the IQ of the M&M group went up an average of twelve points—a huge leap.

If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated. The real question then becomes: How do you manage in such a way as not to de-motivate people? And one of the single most de-motivating actions you can take is to hold out false hopes, soon to be swept away by events.

Fear of "anything nuclear" could stop LFTRs from being built, even though deaths and cancers and disease from all nuclear accidents combined since 1945, major and minor, is less than the deaths produced each year by coal plants. And LFTRs would have better safety and less waste than current nuclear reactors. "The utilities do not have an inherent motive, beyond an unproven profit profile, to make the leap... the large manufacturers, such as Westinghouse, have already made deep financial commitments to a different technology, massive light-water reactors, a technology of proven soundness that has already been certified by the NRC for construction and licensing. Among experts in the policy and technology of nuclear power, one hears that large nuclearplant technology has already arrived

Charles Spurgeon emphasized the urgency of the harvest with these words: “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap into Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

The purpose of compensation is not to “motivate” the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get and keep the right people in the first place.

Doug Larson, the famous runner and 1924 Olympic Gold Medal winner, said it best 'Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.

under the right conditions, the problems of commitment, alignment, motivation, and change just melt away. They largely take care of themselves.

Set a goal. Say it out loud. Let it scare you. Let it change you. Let it excite you. And then, let it motivate you. Until one day, you’ll say it out loud and it’ll be a reality. A product of your hustle, of your persistence. The product of a dreamer who was brave enough to leap.

Maybe he’s just scared to make the leap. Fear is a real thing. I don’t think your job is to motivate him,” Rashida clarifies. “But maybe your presence is enough to make him dream bigger.

Always stand for your identity. Once you stand for your identity, the whole world will recognize you and follow you. Enough of colonialism and its after affects. India is leap frogging into 21st century with its own identity, in spite of 250 years of colonialism.

In analysis we have to deal with a counterplay of retarding and forward-moving forces, with resistance and incentive. Resistance is a collective term for all the forces within the patient that operate to maintain the status quo. His incentive, on the other hand, is produced by the constructive energy that urges him on toward inner freedom. This is the motive power with which we work and without which we could do nothing. It is the force that helps the patient overcome resistance. It makes his associations productive, thereby giving the analyst a chance for better understanding. It gives him the inner strength to endure the inevitable pain of maturing. It makes him willing to take the risk of abandoning attitudes that have given him a feeling of safety and to make the leap into the unknown of new attitudes toward himself and others.

On the other hand, this need to cling, this need to hold the hand, this cry for Mom, also shows you that that’s the edge of the nest. Stepping through right there—making a leap—becomes the motivation for cultivating maitri. You realize that if you can step through that doorway, you’re going forward, you’re becoming more of an adult, more of a complete person, more whole.

Some of the miracles you need are just a leap of Faith away. Just pray and wait.

a quiet, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done and then simply doing it, the comparison companies frequently launched new programs—often with great fanfare and hoopla aimed at “motivating the troops”—only to see the programs fail to produce sustained results. They sought the single defining action, the grand program, the one killer innovation, the miracle moment that would allow them to skip the arduous buildup stage and jump right to breakthrough. They would push the flywheel in one direction, then stop, change course, and throw it in a new direction—and then they would stop, change course, and throw it into yet another direction. After years of lurching back and forth, the comparison companies failed to build sustained momentum and fell instead into what we came to call the doom loop.

You do not need vast experience alone; you also need a leap of Faith to stay on top of the game.

Change is hard, but it's not impossible. Don't be afraid to take the leap, because you have what it takes to soar.

Sometimes familiar things were bad because they kept you stuck. Sometimes, no matter how much you've been hurt, no matter how scary something feels, it's imortant to take a deep breath, take the leap and do those scary things anyway, because they move you forward in life.

The good-to-great leaders understood three simple truths. First, if you begin with “who,” rather than “what,” you can more easily adapt to a changing world. If people join the bus primarily because of where it is going, what happens if you get ten miles down the road and you need to change direction? You’ve got a problem. But if people are on the bus because of who else is on the bus, then it’s much easier to change direction: “Hey, I got on this bus because of who else is on it; if we need to change direction to be more successful, fine with me.” Second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away. The right people don’t need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great. Third, if you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company. Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

Weigh the odds: if risks outweigh rewards, don't take the leap.

In order for us to grow we have to get our feet wet. If God put all the answers in front of us, we would never learn. We need to dig a little deeper, reach a little further, think a little harder, run a little faster, and surprisingly when we utilize our capabilities and push our limits, we begin to grow in leaps and bounds.

Jefferson determined the lodestar that lay hidden in the motivations of others

For many years, psychologists believed that in any domain, success depended on talent first and motivation second. To groom world-class athletes and musicians, experts looked for people with the right raw abilities, and then sought to motivate them. If you want to find people who can dunk like Michael Jordan or play piano like Beethoven, it’s only natural to start by screening candidates for leaping ability and an ear for music. But in recent years, psychologists have come to believe that this approach may be backward.

I entrusted everybody to drive their own projects forward, at their own pace—had its limits, but the fact is, giving a ton of freedom to highly self-motivated people enabled us to make some significant technological leaps in a short time.

If you have the right people, they will be self-motivated.

motivation (“Can’t be late again…”), you eventually get out of bed, but not before twenty muddled minutes of half-dreamt schemes for skipping out today. With a little extra, suddenly it’s not so bad (“Breakfast!”). But when you have sixty extra gallons of it, you leap from bed as if it’s Christmas and you’re pretty sure that the big box in the back is the new Xbox. More motivation doesn’t just mean that we’re more likely to succeed at a task, but also that we’ll have more fun doing it. This is what we want; this is why we hack motivation. It’s not as simple as hooking up Xbox-sized rewards to every boring task, but it’s easier than trying to accomplish anything without enough motivation.

Intellectually, we may appreciate that loving ourselves would give us a firm foundation but for most of us this is a leap of logic, not a leap of the heart.

If we purchased the land, the zoo would be enlarged from four acres to six. At the time, it seemed like an enormous step to take. We argued back and forth. We talked, dreamed, and planned. Steve always seemed to worry about the future. “If anything happens to me, promise that you’ll take care of the zoo.” “Of course I will,” I said. “That’s easy to promise, but nothing is going to happen to you. Don’t worry.” “Will you still love me if a croc grabs me and I lose an arm or a leg?” “Yes, of course I would still love you,” I said. But there were many evenings when he would run through improbably scenarios, just checking to see how I really felt. One night he looked particularly concerned, his brow furrowed. “What’s up?” I asked. “Tell me why you married me.” I laughed. “Because you’re hot in the cot.” That broke the tension, and he laughed too. We both relaxed a little bit. But he would sometimes wonder if I’d married him just because I loved him, or if it was because he was a bit of Tarzan and Croc Dundee and Indiana Jones all rolled into one. “I’m in love with Steve Irwin,” I assured him, “and part of the reason I love you is because you are such a staunch advocate for wildlife. Your empathy and compassion for all animals is part of it too. But most of all, I know that destiny brought us together.” Steve continued our serious discussion, and he spoke of his mortality. He was convinced that he would never reach forty. That’s why he was in such a hurry all the time, to get as much done as he could. He didn’t feel sad about it. He only felt the motivation to make a difference before he was gone. “I’m not afraid of death,” he said. “I’m only afraid of dying. I don’t want to get sick and dwindle. I love working hard and playing hard and living hard, and making every moment count.” I learned so much from Steve. He helped me reevaluate my own purpose, my own life. What would happen if I didn’t make it to forty? What legacy would I leave? That evening he was unusually contemplative. “None of our petty problems really matter,” he said. I agreed. “In a hundred years, what difference is it going to make, worrying about this two acres of land? We need to focus on the real change that will make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren.” Steve gave me a strange look. Children? We had never discussed having children much, because we were flat strapped. The thought of filming more documentaries, running the zoo, and raising a family was just too daunting. But that evening we did agree on one thing: We would spend some of my savings and make the leap to enlarge the zoo. We were both so happy with our decision. “We’re lucky that we met before I became the Crocodile Hunter,” he said. I knew what he was talking about. It made things a lot easier, a lot more clear-cut. I had fallen in love with Steve Irwin, not the guy on TV. “I don’t know how they do it,” he said. “Who?” I asked. “People in the limelight,” he said. “How do they tell who’s in it for them and who’s just after their celebrity? It puts a new slant on everything. Not for us, though,” he added. “Too right,” I agreed.

But there is a second answer to the question of why greatness, one that is at the very heart of what motivated us to undertake this huge project in the first place: the search for meaning, or more precisely, the search for meaningful work. I

There's a reason why people find each other, and this reason is found in their emotional motives before they meet. They both attracted one another by their needs, desires and dreams. And so, only their fears, ignorance and misused freewill can set them apart before they have a chance to discover that they were blessed and not condemned to one another. This truth is asleep in their heart, waiting to be unlocked with faith, a leap into the unknown, kind words and gestures that unmask their soul.

You can’t manufacture passion or “motivate” people to feel passionate. You can only discover what ignites your passion and the passions of those around you.

Academic historians of the last hundred years or so get all stiff and tweedy when you suggest that people will go to all ends for the sake of their religion. They'll assure you that religion is just a cover for other, more "rational" motivations. They would prefer to explain the world in terms of economic self-interest, of class warfare, or of dynastic imperatives. But has not the early twenty-first century made it catastrophically clear how many people (and not just the desperate, either) are ready to leap over the brink in the name of their religion? The same was certainly true of "the age of discovery." While greed should certainly be given her due, there is no reason to think that da Gama was not perfectly sincere when he said that he came in search of Christians and spices.

Most have forgotten that seeking change always requires a touch of insanity. If taking action before the perfect conditions arise, or before we receive permission, is unreasonable or reckless, then we must be unreasonable and reckless. We must remember we are not the sum of our intentions but of our actions. Bold and disciplined initiative is our savior; it allows us to rise, to leap, to soar to the heights of true greatness.

I had successfully attended an event by myself. I had done something that was important to me, regardless of the fact that no one else wanted to go, and I had reconnected with my long lost love of fashion. I was not shunned. I did not die or spontaneously burst into flames. In fact, I was just fine.

All we must do is take small steps. Steps with the belief that someday, all those small steps will culminate into a giant leap, a fitting finale.

if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away. The right people don’t need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great.

Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated. Waiting

First visualize your goal in your mind. Then have a leap of faith, and let your passion guide you throughout the process.

Baby steps towards progress gradually lead to a Leap of success.

Workplace culture is the heartbeat of an organization, and either yields energy and motivates people to pursue greatness or sucks the inspiration out of employees and slowly brings a business to a grinding halt.

When you fear something that you deeply desire, that is a strong indicator that you can achieve it.

Fear will always be a part of every growth process you put yourself through. It should never cripple you or keep you from taking the right leap.

Reality suggests that the value of this type of detailed and rigid planning is minimal. Most entrepreneurs dig right in, start their businesses, and plan as they go along. Success won’t yield to a plan. Rather, success is more likely the product of the entrepreneur’s motivation, experiences, and readiness to learn and adapt—a path that reveals itself only after he takes the leap of faith in the first place.

In order to win at life, you have to have more audacity.

Human motivation cannot be documented, at least not with any kind of finality. After all, we rarely understand our own motivations, and so, even when we write down what we honestly believe to be our reasons for making the choices we make, our explanation is likely to be wrong or partly wrong or at least incomplete. So even when a historian or biographer has a wealth of information at hand, in the end he still has to make that uncomfortable leap into the abyss of ignorance before he can declare why a person did the things he did.

When individual disputes flare up our default tendency is to assume the other party is at fault or even that they are ‘bad or mad’, simply because they disagree and irritate us. Although this attitude may soothe our fragile egos, behind this deluded thinking is a belief that there is nothing for us to learn or correct and we miss an opportunity to recognise our blind spots. So, before leaping to conclusions that may only exacerbate matters, first consider your own part in the circumstances and the larger context. Are they saying something that you do not want to hear? Are they saying something that needs to be addressed? Do you fear they may expose you in a bad light? Take the time to discover where the other person is coming from, discern their motives, be curious about their ideas and have the maturity to consider opposing views without feeling threatened.

But then when am I not a fool?" - as her heart took a leap, her perpetual over sensitivity shrieked out loud with a twinkle in her eye, the spark of naive honesty. "But then again I would rather be a fool than befooled with the illusionary intelligence of them around." - a smile caressed her as the voice of her soul clutched her with a thousand memories of days gone by, the leaf of fooled wisdom.

Courage can gift you with immense opportunities; you just need to try and take a leap of faith...

Now, you might be wondering, “How do you motivate people with brutal facts? Doesn’t motivation flow chiefly from a compelling vision?” The answer, surprisingly, is, “No.” Not because vision is unimportant, but because expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time. One of the dominant themes that runs throughout this book is that if you successfully implement its findings, you will not need to spend time and energy “motivating” people. If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated. The real question then becomes: How do you manage in such a way as not to de-motivate people? And one of the single most de-motivating actions you can take is to hold out false hopes, soon to be swept away by events.

Hire the right people. “We will continue to focus on hiring and retaining versatile and talented employees,” he wrote in an early shareholder letter. Compensation, especially early on, was heavily weighted to stock options rather than cash. “We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner.” There are three criteria he instructs managers to consider when they are hiring: Will you admire this person? Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group he or she is entering? Along what dimension might this person be a superstar? It’s never been easy to work at Amazon. When Bezos interviews people, he warns them, “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three.” Bezos makes no apologies. “We are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about,” he says. “Such things aren’t meant to be easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have this group of dedicated employees whose sacrifices and passion build Amazon.com.” These lessons remind me of the way Steve Jobs operated. Sometimes such a style can be crushing, and to some people it may feel tough or even cruel. But it also can lead to the creation of grand, new innovations and companies that change the way we live. Bezos has done all of this. But he still has many chapters to write in his story. He has always been public spirited, but I suspect in the coming years he will do more with philanthropy. Just as Bill Gates’s parents led him into such endeavors, Jackie and Mike Bezos have been models for Bezos as he focuses on missions such as providing great early-childhood education to all kids. I am also confident that he has at least one more major leap to make. I suspect that he will be—and is, indeed, eager to be—one of the first private citizens to blast himself into space. As he told his high school graduating class back in 1982, “Space, the final frontier, meet me there!

We all encounter those life-changing moments when our first instinct is to do what is easy or popular. And it is only when we take a leap of faith to follow the rocky road in front of us that we find hidden treasures we could never have imagined.

Facing risks and pushing boundaries is the key to unlocking potential - don't be afraid to take a calculated leap.

The Objective is inspiring and motivates those people who don’t dig numbers. For those who do love numbers, the Key Results keep the Objective real. I know I’ve got a good Objective when I leap out of bed in the morning eager to make it happen. I know I’ve got the right Key Results when I am also a little scared you can’t make them.

When you're tired, rest. When you're motivated, act. When you're inspired, create. When you're hopeful, leap. When you're doubtful, wait. When you're ready, go.

Here’s an example from the test Marty and his students developed to distinguish optimists from pessimists: Imagine: You can’t get all the work done that others expect of you. Now imagine one major cause for this event. What leaps to mind? After you read that hypothetical scenario, you write down your response, and then, after you’re offered more scenarios, your responses are rated for how temporary (versus permanent) and how specific (versus pervasive) they are. If you’re a pessimist, you might say, I screw up everything. Or: I’m a loser. These explanations are all permanent; there’s not much you can do to change them. They’re also pervasive; they’re likely to influence lots of life situations, not just your job performance. Permanent and pervasive explanations for adversity turn minor complications into major catastrophes. They make it seem logical to give up. If, on the other hand, you’re an optimist, you might say, I mismanaged my time. Or: I didn’t work efficiently because of distractions. These explanations are all temporary and specific; their “fixability” motivates you to start clearing them away as problems. Using this test, Marty confirmed that, compared to optimists, pessimists are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. What’s more, optimists fare better in domains not directly related to mental health. For instance, optimistic undergraduates tend to earn higher grades and are less likely to drop out of school. Optimistic young adults stay healthier throughout middle age and, ultimately, live longer than pessimists. Optimists are more satisfied with their marriages. A one-year field study of MetLife insurance agents found that optimists are twice as likely to stay in their jobs, and that they sell about 25 percent more insurance than their pessimistic colleagues. Likewise, studies of salespeople in telecommunications, real estate, office products, car sales, banking, and other industries have shown that optimists outsell pessimists by 20 to 40 percent.

Courage is taking the first step, even when you don't know what lies ahead; It's about having the inner strength to take a leap of faith, even when you're not sure what's coming next.