Russell Simmons Quotes

No matter where you're from or what you've done, you're never stuck in a particular circumstance, relationship, or cycle unless you say you are.

A person's strength is to know their weaknesses.

The key ingredient to any kind of happiness or success is to never give less than your best

A philosopher/mathematician named Bertrand Russell who lived and died in the same century as Gass once wrote: “Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.” Here is the essence of mankind’s creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatazoa attacking an ovum.

To separate yourself from your weakness and look at it objectively is a very powerful thing.

when you embrace the process of your work, instead of focusing on the results, you’ll always be happier, plus do a much better job.

There are no failures, only quitters

Only do shit you believe in!

When you do good by the world, the world will do good by you

Giving, not trading or selling, is the basis of success. The most rewarding thing you can do is just to give the world something good. And ultimately you will be paid so much more for that gift than it you had tried to trade it for something else.

Never change for the mainstream—stay in your lane, and if you’re talented and resilient enough the mainstream will come to you.

You can decide that no matter what is happening around you, the sun will always be shining in your world. Or you can decide that your world is always going to be a cold, dark place.

Your vision makes your world. If you see the world as a happy, loving place, then that’s where you’re going to live. But if you see the world as a messed up, negative, and dangerous place, then that will be your reality.

I don’t believe that people create their own visions. Rather, I believe that visions are actually God’s way of communicating with us.

People who know better do better. If

Our bodies are designed to remain in balance, and when they go out of balance, a natural mechanism has been interfered with.” —DEEPAK CHOPRA Not

That’s because the truth is, the only things that are going to bring lasting happiness to your life are good health and knowledge of self, which lead to a compassionate relationship with the world.

The beautiful thing about meditation is that it allows you to access that cool guy or girl inside of you that's waiting to come out. You'll be able to access the part of you that people like to be around. The part of you that feels upbeat about things. That feels like you're moving toward your goals without frustration and anxiety. That feels ecstatic to be alive! The more I meditate, the more I have these moments.

when you become more mindful of what you put in your body every day, that mindfulness will seep into everything you do. Instead of sleepwalking through your life, you’ll be more adept at living in the present moment. And the present, as I like to say, is the only place where good things can happen to you in life.

In meditation we experience the silence from which all creativity springs. The act of creation—whether from a blank page to a poem, an empty space to a building, a thought to a song or film—starts with a void. The more intimate a relationship we can build with that silent void, the more clearly the art can shine through and spring forth. Meditation is the vehicle to connect to that silence.” —Rick Rubin, Malibu 2013

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. And finally,

When we become more aware of how powerfully our choices in diet and lifestyle affect us—for better and for worse—then we can make different ones.” —DR. DEAN ORNISH Sorry

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” —ALBERT EINSTEIN Considering

The longer we eat healthier foods, the better they taste.” —Dr. Michael Greger, Humane Society Most

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” —GANDHI It’s

What I learned is ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is ignorance. You can’t help or contribute to this planet without knowing what’s really going on.

Without stillness, life is a blur.

True happiness lies in being compassionate and appreciating the world and our circumstances, rather than being coldhearted and greedy. We often realize too late that our favorite moments are those spent simply with the people we love. In seeing the miracles that unfold around us every day. Eventually we all come to understand that our happiness is derived from being present in the moment. Why wait until the end of your life to discover this Truth?

I understand that for beginners it isn't that easy to sit down, close your eyes, and settle into stillness. Your thoughts have gotten used to making SO MUCH NOISE! They have enjoyed too much influence over you to simply fade the first time you try.

After my first experience via yoga, I became incredibly focused on experiencing that sense of stillness again. The stillness that reminded me that I could be a better person, a better friend, a better citizen of the world, as well as a better businessman.

The key is, when I do break down and “cheat” with a piece of fish, it doesn’t rob me of my focus or dedication. I don’t start telling myself, “I’m too weak to do this,” or that now I’m no longer a vegan. While my intention is to live a vegan lifestyle, I’m not perfect. And I accept my imperfection. Which is why when I slip up, I don’t start worrying about what other vegans would “think” if they knew I’d eaten some meat. Because if I allow myself to get caught up in those distractions, then I’ll feel like I’ve “failed” at being a vegan and will find myself back eating meat all the time again. Which of course in my eyes would be the real failure. Instead, I consider what just happened—basically that I became distracted by an urge—and rather than beat myself up over it, I just return to my vegan practice the next time I sit down to a meal. I

What I’ve always tried to explain to those artists is that the reason they’re feeling out of whack is because they got too caught up in the celebrating. If you’re an artist, what truly makes you happy isn’t buying new cars or popping bottles. It’s making beautiful music for other people to enjoy. That’s it. You’re going to be your happiest when you’re in the studio writing a song, not when you’re out celebrating how many records that song eventually sold.

I’ll give you an example. In my many years in the entertainment industry, I’ve been around some amazing artists, in particular some of the greatest rappers of all time. Now, rapping might not be an art form that people associate with calmness and stillness, but I can tell you that from LL Cool J to Chuck D to Biggie Smalls to Jay Z, one trait that all those great artists share is an ability to operate out of stillness. There are a lot of rappers who worked as hard as those guys, but very few were able to dip into that well of creativity like they were.

A philosopher/mathematician named Bertrand Russell who lived and died in the same century as Gass once wrote: “Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.” Here is the essence of mankind’s creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatozoa attacking an ovum. It might be argued that the Siamese-twin infants of word/idea are the only contribution the human species can, will, or should make to the raveling cosmos. (Yes, our DNA is unique but so is a salamander’s. Yes, we construct artifacts but so have species ranging from beavers to the architect ants whose crenellated towers are visible right now off the port bow. Yes, we weave real-fabric things from the dreamstuff of mathematics, but the universe is hardwired with arithmetic. Scratch a circle and π peeps out. Enter a new solar system and Tycho Brahe’s formulae lie waiting under the black velvet cloak of space/time. But where has the universe hidden a word under its outer layer of biology, geometry, or insensate rock?)

The great ones, however, never get lost in those distractions. Biggie in particular was legendary for his ability to stay focused. There could be all sorts of things going on—drinks being passed, blunts being rolled, people trying to holler at him about various projects—but he’d just sit in a chair with his eyes closed, seemingly oblivious to all the chaos around him. That was his way of connecting to the stillness inside of him, so that when it was time to get behind the microphone, he wasn’t caught up in worrying about how his last record did or how this one might be received once it was released. No, when it was time to make a song, he was always able to connect with both the music he was hearing in his headphones and the poetry that was filling up his heart. The same way today artists like Jay Z or Lil Wayne are able to create entire songs without ever putting a word down on paper. Through being able to connect completely with the music, they are able to operate from that “zone” that the great ones are able to access. That might not sound like a big deal, but I’ve seen so many artists get sidetracked by those distractions. And when it’s time for them to get in the recording booth and execute their craft, their mind is somewhere else. Sure, they’re rapping along to the beat, but they’re not connected to it.

Russel Simmons If you sit, and the thoughts settle, and the noise disappears, then you see all God’s beauty. Those people who are fully awake see all the sunsets. You drive your car, you see every flower. It promotes a lasting, stable, happy relationship with the world. And so if you meditate, you’ll be a happier, more stable person. You will be more productive. Because if you’re awake and present and thoughtful, you’re good at your job. And you’re a good giver. And also, having that kind of focus, that single point of focus it takes when you’re working and when you’re engaged, is the real thing that promotes happiness on its own. And then the things come as a result.

An award-winning reporter for The New York Times named Michael Moss recently wrote an excellent—and disturbing—book on this called Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. In the book, Moss talks about how scientists have perfected the “bliss point” in many of these products. The “bliss point” is the perfect amount of sugar that will give you a high and get you hooked on a type of cookie or cereal. Moss also writes about how those scientists have perfected what the industry calls “mouth feel.” You might not know the term, but you definitely know the “feel”—that warm, satisfying sensation you experience when you bite into melted cheese or some crispy fried chicken. Unfortunately, “mouth feel” comes from super-high levels of fat, which create the same high that sugar does but come with even more calories.

When it was time to get on the mic and spit a verse, those guys were able to shut out all the distractions and delve inside. If you’ve never been inside a recording studio, trust me, there can be a ton of distractions. As a rule, rappers (and rock stars) like to be around a lot of people when they work, so it’s not uncommon to have producers, engineers, managers, friends, groupies, journalists, maybe even a few drug dealers all packed into the studio. It’s a scene where it’s easy for a rapper to become focused on everything but the music.

Earthlings.

slowly, meditation gives our amygdala a chance to make more calm and measured assessments of situations.

Remember, these addictive qualities aren’t a coincidence. These foods have been developed and marketed by the food giants to get you hooked. As Moss told Time magazine, “In some ways getting unhooked on [processed] foods is harder than getting unhooked on narcotics, because you can’t go cold turkey. You can’t just stop eating. The head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Washington says that it’s more difficult for people to control their eating habits than narcotics. She is hugely empathic with overeaters.” Not to be too dramatic, but every time you walk into a supermarket, especially the center aisles where the popular salty and sugary items are always stocked, you’re basically under attack. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent so that you will not only buy an item that’s unhealthy for you but also keep coming back for it time and time again.

I had several friends from law school who were very enterprising guys, much more so than the average law student. They each started businesses after practicing law at large firms for multiple years. What kind of businesses did they start? They started boutique law firms. This is completely unsurprising if you think about it. They’d spent years becoming good at delivering legal services. It was a field that they understood and could compete in. Their credentials translated too. People learn from what they’re doing and do it again on their own. It’s not just lawyers; the consulting firm Bain and Company was started by seven former partners and managers from the Boston Consulting Group. Myriad boutique investment banks and hedge funds have spun out of large financial organizations. You can see the same pattern in the startup world. After PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002, its founders and employees went on to found or cofound LinkedIn (Reid Hoffman), YouTube (Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, and Chad Hurley), Yelp (Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman), Tesla Motors (Elon Musk), SpaceX (Musk again), Yammer (David Sacks), 500 Startups (Dave McClure), and many other companies. PayPal’s CEO, Peter Thiel, famously made a $500,000 investment in Facebook that grew to over $1 billion. In this sense, PayPal is one of the most prolific companies of recent times. But if you look at any successful growth company you’ll start to see their alumni show up doing parallel things. Former Apple employees founded or cofounded Android, Palm, Nest, and Handspring, companies that revolve around devices. Former Yahoo! employees founded Ycombinator, Cloudera, Hunch.com, AppNexus, Polyvore, and many other web-oriented companies. Organizations give rise to other organizations like themselves.

If you’re looking for other authors who’ll grab your attention and keep it, I’m happy to recommend the following: Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines Series Robert Dugoni’s Tracy Crosswhite Series Kendra Elliot’s Bone Secrets Series Marcus Sakey’s Brilliance Trilogy T.R. Ragan’s Lizzy Gardner Series Barry Eisler’s John Rain Series Sean Chercover’s The Game Trilogy Alan Russell’s Gideon and Sirius Series And newly discovered Matthew FitzSimmons—I gave Matt a well-deserved blurb.

Russell never got as much recognition as he deserved. Race was one reason. During the early sixties no black artist got adequate publicity.

Should hyperintelligence matter when we’re comparing teams from different decades? Absolutely. It’s an era-specific advantage, just like smoking, lowtop sneakers, lack of fitness and rudimentary VD medication were detriments during the Russell era.

career (like Bill Russell being a lousy announcer or O.J. being a lousy ex-husband). Here’s the killer excerpt: “The greatest struggle an athlete undergoes is the battle for our memories. It’s gradual. It begins before you’re aware that it’s begun, and it ends with a terrible fall from grace. It really is a battle to the death.

mindful eating is one of the most powerful stress relievers that we have at our disposal. “If I can look deeply into my food and take this time as a meditation—just as important as my sitting or walking meditation time—I receive the many gifts of the cosmos that I would not otherwise profit from if my mind were elsewhere.

When the Lakers held Jerry West Night in March 1971, Bill Russell paid his own way to be there and said during the ceremony, “Jerry, I once wrote that success is a journey, and that the greatest honor a man can have is the respect and friendship of his peers.

When the Lakers held Jerry West Night in March 1971, Bill Russell paid his own way to be there and said during the ceremony, “Jerry, I once wrote that success is a journey, and that the greatest honor a man can have is the respect and friendship of his peers. You have that more than any man I know. Jerry, you are, in every sense of the word, truly a champion. If I could have one wish granted, it would be that you would always be happy.

According to Russell Simmons, producer Eric B once claimed he could have created fifteen albums with the ideas from Paul’s Boutique. Even the late Miles Davis reportedly once said he never tired of the record.

RUSSELL SIMMONS: Breaking Down the Extremist Barriers to Tolerance and Understanding

Some people think the plant-based, whole-foods diet is extreme. Half a million people a year will have their chests opened up and a vein taken from their leg and sewn onto their coronary artery. Some people would call that extreme.” —DR. CALDWELL ESSELSTYN N

Research finds that people who eat a diet rich in animal protein carry similar cancer risk to those who smoke twenty cigarettes each day.” —THE DAILY TELEGRAPH I