Succession Greg Quotes

the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place.

From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.

I will learn by screwing up.

If art is expression, can it fail? Is success simply a matter of what one does with failure?

Being a winner in life means finding a way to keep yourself in the personal space where you’re being the best and most vibrant you instead of the smallest you. That is the secret to success in anything you want to do in life. That means not comparing yourself to anyone else and concentrating on you. Because when your self-esteem is in the shitter and you don’t feel worthy, you look to others for validation, you settle for crappy things and all you get is crappy things and who wants that?

Clarity equals success.

He was a typical workaholic, driven to succeed and willing to put in the hours to do so. It didn't leave much time for a social life. (Greg)

Strangely, some of us respond to feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by vowing to work even harder and longer. It doesn’t help that our culture glorifies burnout as a measure of success and self-worth. The implicit message is that if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we must not be doing enough. That great things are reserved for those who bleed, for those who almost break. Crushing volume is somehow now the goal. Burnout is not a badge of honor.

No empire or force for “good” has ever successfully eliminated a population of “evildoers.” The populations we claim to have vanquished are still with us today and contributing to our society in ways that are usually unacknowledged. Perhaps the real “hell” of war is that you can never really win one.

If you are doing the right things, then the right things will happen to you.

Research has shown that of all forms of human motivation the most effective one is progress. Why? Because a small, concrete win creates momentum and affirms our faith in our further success.

By age eleven he was well on his way to success, always on the lookout for new money-making opportunities. And then one day Greg Kenton made the greatest financial discovery of his young life.

Leaders are never measured by their success but rather by the success of those they've been entrusted to lead. Therefore, a leader can never be considered successful until those they lead are successful.

If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. - Greg McKeown A 'no' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble. - Mahatma Gandhi The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” - Warren Buffett

It may sound peculiar coming from an old punk rocker, but I strongly believe that governmental policies are the only viable way to administer our long-term success as a species. I guess you could say that my attitude of 'fuck the government' is still intact. But it's more a criticism of lousy government than a statement of nihilism. The truth is, when it comes to environmental protection, the government is the best way to enact a new social awareness by establishing laws by which industries have to abide.

The nine in our list are based on a longer list in Robert Leahy, Stephen Holland, and Lata McGinn’s book, Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders. For more on CBT—how it works, and how to practice it—please see Appendix 1.) EMOTIONAL REASONING: Letting your feelings guide your interpretation of reality. “I feel depressed; therefore, my marriage is not working out.” CATASTROPHIZING: Focusing on the worst possible outcome and seeing it as most likely. “It would be terrible if I failed.” OVERGENERALIZING: Perceiving a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. “This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things.” DICHOTOMOUS THINKING (also known variously as “black-and-white thinking,” “all-or-nothing thinking,” and “binary thinking”): Viewing events or people in all-or-nothing terms. “I get rejected by everyone,” or “It was a complete waste of time.” MIND READING: Assuming that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.” LABELING: Assigning global negative traits to yourself or others (often in the service of dichotomous thinking). “I’m undesirable,” or “He’s a rotten person.” NEGATIVE FILTERING: You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. “Look at all of the people who don’t like me.” DISCOUNTING POSITIVES: Claiming that the positive things you or others do are trivial, so that you can maintain a negative judgment. “That’s what wives are supposed to do—so it doesn’t count when she’s nice to me,” or “Those successes were easy, so they don’t matter.” BLAMING: Focusing on the other person as the source of your negative feelings; you refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. “She’s to blame for the way I feel now,” or “My parents caused all my problems.”11

This book is about what might be the world’s most improbable Hollywood success story. At its center is an enigmatic filmmaker who claims, among many other things, to be a vampire. This man speaks with a thick European accent, the derivation of which he won’t identify. He also refuses to reveal his age or the origins of his seemingly vast fortune. His name is Tommy Wiseau; and the film he wrote, directed, produced, starred in, and poured $6 million into is a disastrous specimen of cinematic hubris called The Room.

The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves. If we underinvest in ourselves, and by that I mean our minds, our bodies, and our spirits, we damage the very tool we need to make our highest contribution. One of the most common ways people – especially ambitious, successful people – damage this asset is through a lack of sleep.

Your new found hope is not in just a wish or hope for good luck, but your hope is in the loving and all powerful God of the Bible.

TO FOLLOW, WITHOUT HALT, ONE AIM: THERE IS THE SECRET TO SUCCESS. —Anna Pavlova, Russian ballet dancer

As often happens to driven, ambitious people, his earlier success had distracted him from his clarity of purpose.

Sleep Is the New Status Symbol for Successful Entrepreneurs

Don’t think about bringing an idea that you are not willing to become responsible to personally carry out!

Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

Alzheimer's is not about the past - the successes, the accolades, the accomplishments. They offer only context and are worthless on places like Pluto. Alzheimer's is about the present and the struggle, the scrappy brawl, the fight to live with a disease. It's being in the present, the relationships, the experiences, which is the core of life, the courage to live in the soul.

We don’t have the power to choose all of our experiences, but we always have the ability to choose our behavior in the midst of them and in their wake, and those choices are what define our character.

The Twelve Steps have helped many millions of people be successful in recovery and it is unmistakable that God and a spiritual relationship with God are key components of why The Twelve Steps have been so successful.

These executives are quoted in an article called “Sleep Is the New Status Symbol for Successful Entrepreneurs.”4 Nancy Jeffrey of the Wall Street Journal writes: “It’s official. Sleep, that rare commodity in stressed-out America, is the new status symbol.

When we start small and reward progress, we end up achieving more than when we set big, lofty, and often impossible goals. And as a bonus, the act of positively reinforcing our successes allows us to reap more enjoyment and satisfaction out of the process.

There’s a cellular automaton called TVC. After Turing, von Neumann and Chiang. Chiang’s version was N-dimensional. That leaves plenty of room for data within easy reach. In two dimensions, the original von Neumann machine had to reach further and further - and wait longer and longer - for each successive bit of data. In a six-dimensional TVC automaton, you can have a three-dimensional grid of computers, which keeps on growing indefinitely - each with its own three-dimensional memory, which can also grow without bound. And when the simulated TVC universe being run on the physical computer is suddenly shut down, the best explanation for what I’ve witnessed will be a continuation of that universe - an extension made out of dust. Maria could almost see it: a vast lattice of computers, a seed of order in a sea of random noise, extending itself from moment to moment by sheer force of internal logic, “accreting” the necessary building blocks from the chaos of non-space-time by the very act of defining space and time.

There are different kinds of atheism. The most popular kind is “ontological” atheism, a firm denial that there is any creator or manager of the universe. There is “ethical” atheism, a firm conviction that, even if there is a creator/manager of the world, he does not run things in accordance with the human moral agenda, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked. There is “existential” atheism, a nervy assertion that even if there is a God, he has no authority to be the boss of my life. There is “agnostic” atheism, a cautious denial that claims that God’s existence can be neither proved nor disproved; this type of atheist ends up with behavior no different from that of the ontological atheist. There is “ignostic” atheism, another cautious denial, which claims that the word “God” is so confusing that it is meaningless; this belief, again, translates into the same behavior as the ontological atheist. There is “pragmatic” atheism, which regards God as irrelevant to ethical and successful living, and which views all discussions about God as a waste of time.

Every disciple is a believer, but not every believer is necessarily a disciple. Anything short of discipleship, however, is settling for less than what God really desires for us. Loving God more than anyone or anything else is the very foundation of being a disciple. If you want to live your Christian life to its fullest, then love Jesus more than anyone or anything else. Either you will have harmony with God and friction with people, or you will have harmony with people and friction with God. You become a disciple in the biblical sense only when you are totally and completely committed to Jesus Christ and His Word. As a true disciple, your life won’t only be characterized by practical results and a hunger for Scripture, but you also will have love for others — especially fellow believers. Without all of these characteristics, you can’t really claim to be His disciple. A person who has been with Jesus will boldly share his or her faith. A person who has been with Jesus will be a person of prayer. A person who has been with Jesus will be persecuted. If for you, the Christian life is all about feeling good and having everything go your way, then you won’t like being a disciple. Being a follower of Christ is the most joyful and exciting life there is. But it also can be the most challenging life there is. It’s a life lived out under the command of someone other than yourself. Most prayers are not answered because they are outside the will of God. Once we have discovered God’s will, we can then pray aggressively and confidently for it. We can pray, believing it will happen, because we know it is not something we have dreamed. A forgiven person will be a forgiving person. A true disciple will harbor no grudge toward another. The disciple knows it will hinder his or her prayer life and walk with God. It is far better to sit down for an hour and talk genuinely with one person than to rattle off trite clichés to scores of people. Attending more Bible studies, more prayer meetings, reading more Christian books, and listening to more teaching without an outlet for the truth will cause us to spiritually decay. We need to take what God has given us and use it constructively in the lives of others. You were placed on earth to know God. Everything else is secondary. The more we know God, the more we should want to make Him known to a lost world. Your life belongs to God. You don’t share your time and talents with Him; He shares them with you! He owns you and everything about you. You need to recognize and acknowledge that fact.

C. S. Lewis observed that new believers can become discouraged, right at the doorstep of faith, if they seek only the initial emotional experience, not the ongoing reality of a maturing relationship with God. Speaking in the fictional voice of a devilish tempter in The Screwtape Letters, he wrote, The Enemy [God] allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. . . . The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His “free” lovers and servants—“sons” is the word He uses. . . . Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to “do it on their own.” And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.

All I’m saying is, technology can potentially do better than nature because of the very fact that it’s not always a matter of life or death. If an organism has been fine-tuned to maximize its overall reproductive success, that’s not the same thing as embodying the ideal solution to every individual problem it faces. Evolution appears inventive to us because it’s had time to try so many possibilities, but it has no margin at all for real risks, let alone anything truly whimsical. We can celebrate our own beautiful mistakes. All evolution can do is murder them.

On the Craft of Writing:  The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White 2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron  On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker  You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins Prosperity for Writers: A Writer's Guide to Creating Abundance by Honorée Corder  The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield Business for Authors: How To Be An Author Entrepreneur by Joanna Penn  On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark On Mindset:  The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn Vision to Reality: How Short Term Massive Action Equals Long Term Maximum Results by Honorée Corder The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg Mckeown Mastery by Robert Greene The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy Taking Life Head On: How to Love the Life You Have While You Create the Life of Your Dreams by Hal Elrod Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill In

In 1978, [sociologist Albert] Bergesen used Durkheim to illuminate the madness that erupted in Beijing in May 1966, when Mao Zedong began warning about the rising threat of infiltration by pro-capitalist enemies. Zealous college students responded by forming the Red Guards to find and punish enemies of the revolution. Universities across the country were shut down for several years. During those years, the Red Guards rooted out any trace they could find- or imagine- of capitalism, foreign influence, or bourgeois values. In practice, this meant that anyone who was successful or accomplished was suspect, and many professors, intellectuals, and campus administrators were imprisoned or murdered... Over the next few years, tens of millions were persecuted, and hundreds of thousands were murdered. How could such an orgy of self-destruction have happened? Bergesen notes that there are three features common to most political witch hunts: they arise very quickly, they involve charges of crimes against the collective, and the offenses that lead to charges are often trivial or fabricated.

businesses that could benefit from the way networks behave, and this approach yielded some notable successes. Richard came from a different slant. For twenty years, he was a ‘strategy consultant’, using economic analysis to help firms become more profitable than their rivals. He ended up co-founding LEK, the fastest-growing ‘strategy boutique’ of the 1980s, with offices in the US, Europe and Asia. He also wrote books on business strategy, and in particular championed the ‘star business’ idea, which stated that the most valuable venture was nearly always a ‘star’, defined as the biggest firm in a high-growth market. In the 1990s and 2000s, Richard successfully invested the money he had made as a management consultant in a series of star ventures. He also read everything available about networks, feeling intuitively that they were another reason for business success, and might also help explain why some people’s careers took off while equally intelligent and qualified people often languished. So, there were good reasons why Greg and Richard might want to write a book together about networks. But the problem with all such ‘formal’ explanations is that they ignore the human events and coincidences that took place before that book could ever see the light of day. The most

I have since gathered data from more than five hundred individuals about their experience on more than one thousand teams. I asked them to answer a series of questions about a time when they had worked on a unified team, what the experience was like, what role their manager played, and what the end result was. Then I had them contrast this with a time when they had been on a disunified team and what that was like, what role their manager played, and how it affected the end result. The results of this research were startling: when there was a high level of clarity of purpose, the teams and the people on it overwhelmingly thrived. When there was a serious lack of clarity about what the team stood for and what their goals and roles were, people experienced confusion, stress, frustration, and ultimately failure. As one senior vice president succinctly summarized it when she looked at the results gathered from her extended team: “Clarity equals success.

This book should never have happened. If it wasn’t for the most bizarre and twisted sequence of events involving a diverse array of people it wouldn’t have. Let us explain. If someone we, the authors, had wanted to impress - a publisher, say, or a book reviewer - had asked us how it had emerged, we could have come up with all kinds of things to establish our credentials for writing it. But they would have been only a small part of the story of how it came about, and not the interesting bit either. The truth is much more human and fascinating - and it also gets to the heart of the book and shows how networks really work. Greg has always been fascinated by ‘network theory’ - the findings of sociologists, mathematicians and physicists, which seemed to translate to the real world of links between people. Early in his professional life at Auto Trader magazine in Canada he got to see an extraordinary network of buyers and sellers in operation. Later, when he became a venture capitalist - someone who invests in new or young companies, hoping that some of them will become very valuable - he applied what he’d learned. He invested in businesses that could benefit from the way networks behave, and this approach yielded some notable successes. Richard came from a different slant. For twenty years, he was a ‘strategy consultant’, using economic analysis to help firms become more profitable than their rivals. He ended up co-founding LEK, the fastest-growing ‘strategy boutique’ of the 1980s, with offices in the US, Europe and Asia. He also wrote books on business strategy, and in particular championed the ‘star business’ idea, which stated that the most valuable venture was nearly always a ‘star’, defined as the biggest firm in a high-growth market. In the 1990s and 2000s, Richard successfully invested the money he had made as a management consultant in a series of star ventures. He also read everything available about networks, feeling intuitively that they were another reason for business success, and might also help explain why some people’s careers took off while equally intelligent and qualified people often languished. So, there were good reasons why Greg and Richard might want to write a book together about networks. But the problem with all such ‘formal’ explanations is that they ignore the human events and coincidences that took place before that book could ever see the light of day. The most

For any coach, the success of the athletes must be the top priority by a significant margin—any interest on the coach’s part in public recognition, appreciation or fame is misplaced energy and focus that diminishes his or her ability to manage the lifter. Coaches who consistently produces exemplary weightlifters will receive their due credit and recognition eventually without actively seeking it.

An interesting thing I have learned so far is that dopamine neurons do not fire on receiving a reward, they fire on anticipation of a reward. This probably explains a lot of the success of being able to quit so many addictive things at once. Because I just straight up said, “absolutely not!” I don’t give those neurons any expectations about firing. I guess it is all about hope… So, I wonder why I can’t get out of bed, am I not hopeful

But after knowing Tommy for a decade and a half, I’ve never gotten a call or a knock. There were never any suspicious (or, really, any) people around him. Money is what allowed Tommy to not only produce and release The Room, but also to extensively advertise it and keep it alive in the dark time between its disastrous initial release and eventual cult success. The origins of all of this money are still unknown. Money, you could say, is the elephant in The Room.

The prevailing note in the Amazon is one of monotony,” thought Kenneth Grubb, “the same green lines the river-bank, the same gloom fills the forest. . . . Each successive bend in the river is rounded in expectancy, only to reveal another identical stretch ahead.

Enrolling card holders gives a retailer the chance to find out more about its customer base (where they live, family composition, family income). By integrating this information with known purchasing behaviour, retailers are able to target direct marketing activities with a precision and success rate well above that of manufacturers. This gives retailers an information advantage that they have not had since the dawn of modern retailing.

Safeway developed a successful campaign in the United States to grow sales from light shoppers and increase sales from heavy shoppers. They sent a monthly newsletter to 1.2 million card holders. Those whom they identified as secondary shoppers (people who mainly shop somewhere else) received a coupon for departments they didn’t use, like the meat or produce section. Primary shoppers (people who mainly shop at Safeway) were also given coupons, but to less common areas, like the cookie aisle, as they already visited the main departments. The campaign was a huge success, increasing same-store sales and sales from secondary shoppers, plus it changed customer behaviour by converting secondary shoppers into primary ones. The campaign also improved Safeway’s image by going beyond a general discount to create targeted deals. They sent out 451 800 versions of their offering.

Procter & Gamble, America’s largest FMCG company, announced the acquisition of Gillette. Both companies had decades of success developing technologically advanced products and building enviable mindspace positions, yet these were no longer enough to guarantee their desired shelfspace. They realised the only way to compete with the retailers was to become big enough to matter to them.

Ray credits this success to their highly disciplined focus on profitability. He has led the company as CEO for thirty-five years, and throughout that period Ray has followed an extraordinarily consistent routine. He wakes up at 5:30 A.M. every single morning, including Saturday and Sunday (as he’s done for more than fifty years). He then exercises for an hour. He eats breakfast at 7:30 A.M. and arrives at work at 8:15 A.M. Dinner is at 6:30 P.M. with his family. Bedtime is 10:00 P.M. But what really enables Ray to operate at his highest level of contribution is that throughout the day, his routine is governed by a single rule: “Focus on the hardest thing first.” After all, as Ray said to me: “We already have too

a key part of their subsequent success was rooted in the insight that continuous improvement to the shopping experience rather than any one particular improvement had the potential to be a major competitive edge. Tesco’s improvements included their ‘One in front’ commitment to effectively abolish checkout line-ups, baby-changing and bottle-warming facilities, ATMs, escorted searches for product requests and priority parking for pregnant mums. It was not that one improvement was more successful than another; it was the relentless implementation of a never-ending stream of small improvements that steadily improved Tesco’s image relative to their competitors, who were left seemingly forever floundering in their wake. The scheme also got Tesco’s staff more engaged in service delivery and coming up with ideas for further improvements. ‘Every little helps’ helped Tesco attract over a million new shoppers in the period from 1990–1995.

For example, the Head & Shoulders shampoo brand is targeted at consumers with dandruff, approximately 20% of the population. Within that 20%, further profitable segmentation is still possible. Thus, Head & Shoulders can successfully target people with dandruff and either sensitive, itchy or oily scalps, and then coloured, permed or natural hair etc., resulting in 12 versions of their shampoo.

Thanks to the success of private label strategies (see Chapter 9), five of the top eight FMCG manufacturers in the world are actually retailers; giants such as Unilever and Coca-Cola are no longer even in the top ten, their global sales dwarfed by products under the names of Wal-Mart (now the world’s largest FMCG manufacturer), Carrefour, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl. The

The retailers’ discounter strategy is most successful and appropriate when there is share to be taken from smaller, less efficient competitors. Sam

Tesco’s success depends on their ability to replace manufacturer brands with their brands, which they have already achieved on 50% of their product listings. Retailers want to own mindspace because that is where the higher profits lie. To

consolidation, coupled with a desire among the survivors to restore normal profit levels, helps to usher in an era of orderly competition based on serving the variety of wants. In 1975, Carrefour became the first foreign retailer in Brazil. Through a period of aggressive mergers and acquisitions, they increased their market share and forced smaller competitors to leave or consolidate. In 1999, the largest national retailer, Companhia Brasileira de Distribuicao, merged with Casino Guichard Perrachon & Cie, to compete against the growing foreign chains, which now hold 40% of the market. The outcome has been a more orderly market where each is large and successful enough not to have to resort to permanent cut-throat price competition.

When Starbucks launched its instant coffee brand in Japan in April 2010, they invited customers to participate in a four-day taste challenge to see whether they could taste the different between Starbucks VIA Coffee Essence (known as VIA Ready Brew everywhere else) and their fresh-brewed coffee. Over one million samples were given away at their 870 retail stores, and five months later more than 10 million sticks had been sold, making it one of their most successful new product launches. Starbucks

Successful brand management depends on a continually updated understanding of consumers’ needs and wants in a product category. This

They need to rediscover what made them successful in the first place: consumer insight, customer knowledge, innovation and brand-building. The adoption of open-innovation strategies by majors such as Nestlé and P&G is a reflection of their need to ramp up innovation speed and capabilities.

American brewer Schlitz was a highly successful brand of beer in the United States, but it saw its sales tumble from 18 million barrels in 1974 to one million barrels in 1988 through sheer mismanagement.1 The American brewer underestimated the effect of reducing quality to gain cost savings. It accelerated its fermentation process, substituted corn syrup for the traditional barley malt and changed stabiliser. The consumer spotted these cost savings, and their perceptions of the brand’s quality fell. Heavy advertising expenditures and a return to the previous quality were in vain. The mindspace had been taken by competitors Miller and Anheuser-Busch, and could not easily be retaken. The once strong Schlitz brand was relegated to cheap beer status and became increasingly difficult to find in bars and restaurants, especially

Hoping to create a little prestige, some retailers develop and advertise premium clothes sub-brands. In 2006, Myer, one of Australia’s largest retailers, launched a fashion line by top designer Wayne Cooper, known as ‘Wayne by Wayne Cooper Collection’. In 2010, Tesco launched a high-end fashion range, F&F, following Asda, who have created the most successful retail clothing sub-brand, George, by well-known British designer George Davies, which is worth $1.6 billion and is being rolled out in Wal-Marts across North America.

What if you disqualified the notion of talent completely? What if your success at improv was based on what you can learn? What if your success in improv was based completely on how well you learned to cooperate with others? What is possible now? Anything.

Every successful movement for change has three phases. The first is an emergent phase, in which a keystone change is identified, constituencies on the Spectrum of Allies are mapped out, and institutions within the Pillars of Power are determined. The second phase, or the engagement phase, is when tactics are designed to target particular constituencies and institutions for mobilization. The last phase, or the victory phase, is typically triggered by an outside event, which lowers resistance thresholds and sets a cascade in motion.40 An election is falsified, a regime’s brutality is exposed, a new technology is introduced into the market, a chief executive fires a well-liked employee (or an FBI director) without cause, or maybe crucial intelligence is acquired on a key terrorist.

Greg Aloi Singapore Business Process Depending on the business, the business process specialist may be required to do more than assess and provide solutions. Greg Aloi Some companies ask the specialist to implement the solutions, a request that usually requires technical and project management skills. In addition, the specialist may be asked to test the new process to ensure its successful implementation. Greg Aloi Singapore Some companies ask the business process specialist to participate in training employees to use the new solutions effectively. Training may include the development of training materials and the communication of training information in the classroom or online instruction sessions. Greg Aloi This is a way to ensure that everyone gets the same message in the same training.

CLARIFY One Decision That Makes a Thousand TO FOLLOW, WITHOUT HALT, ONE AIM: THERE IS THE SECRET TO SUCCESS. —Anna Pavlova, Russian ballet dancer

Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.” —John Harvey-Jones, Industrialist

Esos ejecutivos son citados en un artículo titulado “Sleep Is the New Status Symbol For Successful Entrepreneurs” [“Dormir es el nuevo símbolo de estatus de los empresarios exitosos”].[4] Nancy Jeffrey del Wall Street Journal escribe: “Es oficial. Dormir, ese producto poco común en un país con tanto estrés como Estados Unidos, es el nuevo símbolo de estatus. Antes considerado como un defecto de debiluchos (las mismas personas exitosas de los ochenta que decían ‘almorzar es para perdedores’ también creían que ‘dormir es para idiotas’), ahora dormir se considera el compañero restaurativo de la mente creativa del ejecutivo”.

paradox of success,

It was admittedly great to have moved past survival mode, but after it became evident that we would survive—and likely continue to grow—the question “What now?” repeatedly surfaced. Is that all there is? More growth, more financial success? The risk many businesses run at this stage is they can become absorbed in the transactions. More efficient transactions lead to more financial growth and success, generating increasing wealth. In the process, the business can become hollow. Leaders are excited by the growth and financial rewards, but the business can lose meaning as the organization becomes obsessed with continued financial growth. It was in this process of exploring our future at this stage that this deeper purpose took a deeper hold and a clearer view of organization meaning surfaced. A shift of emphasis occurs over time as organizations evolve. Intentionally managing that shift is an essential task for leaders.

This is where many organizations—particularly large, established ones—run into trouble when trying to transform themselves into more human-centered, impactful organizations. While there may be an enlightened leader at the top driving a new direction, reprogramming the mindsets of leaders throughout the organization requires a massive effort. Not because they are not inherently good people—they very often are—but because they were raised up in the work world where conventional mindsets were normal, and they had success in that model. Changing the model challenges their views of their own success, something that is not easy for anyone!

We all fail. Every test. Even the ones we pass. Because the world isn’t just dark and light. It’s all shades of gray. We’re just doing our best. Or maybe our worst. I don’t know if we ever find out which side of the shadow we’re really on.

the authors found that the ones that executed most successfully did not have any better ability to predict the future than their less successful counterparts. Instead, they were the ones who acknowledged they could not predict the unexpected and therefore prepared better.5

I grew up believing that drinking cow’s milk was normal, and that those who can’t – because it gives them painful flatulence – are the odd ones. But, it turns out that milk-slurpers are the new kids on the block. Our prehistoric ancestors were hunting animals millions of years ago, but it wasn’t until the Neolithic era that humans actually consumed their milk. Is it simply that it hadn’t occurred to us before? Were we too busy hiding from cave lions? Well, maybe. But in reality it’s biology that determined the success of the switchover, not lack of effort. Until about 7,500 years ago, our adult ancestors simply couldn’t process the sugary lactose in milk, just as 70 per cent of the world’s people can’t today. It was only random mutations in the MCM6 gene that produced an enzyme called lactase that stops the uncomfortable build-up of stomach gas.

The journalist Walter Lippmann identified in Henry Ford, for all his peculiarity, a common strain of "primitive Americanism." The industrialist's conviction that he could make the world conform to his will was founded on a faith that success in economic matters should, by extension, allow capitalists to try their hands "with equal success" at "every other occupation." "Mr. Ford is neither a crank nor a freak," Lippmann insisted, but "merely the logical exponent of American prejudices about wealth and success.

Leading well is the single most important thing you can do to be a successful product manager with Agile.

Greg Jensen, co-CEO, explains that all this success derives from the company’s approach to its principles, a source of “compounding understanding,” much like compound interest, over time.

Theology is a science which can be successfully cultivated only in connection with its practical application.

People with purpose don't let obstacles get in their way.

Experimentation also proved serendipitous for Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, when they were putting together the Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California, north of San Diego. It was destined to become one of the most successful brewing startups of the 1990s. In The Craft of Stone Brewing Co. Koch and Wagner confess that the home-brewed ale that became Arrogant Bastard Ale and propelled Stone to fame in the craft brewing world, started with a mistake. Greg Koch recalls that Wagner exclaimed “Aw, hell!” as he brewed an ale on his brand spanking new home-brewing system. “I miscalculated and added the ingredients in the wrong percentages,” he told Koch. “And not just a little. There’s a lot of extra malt and hops in there.” Koch recalls suggesting they dump it, but Wagner decided to let it ferment and see what it tasted like. Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, founders of Stone Brewery. Photograph © Stone Brewing Co. They both loved the resulting hops bomb, but they didn’t know what to do with it. Koch was sure that nobody was “going to be able to handle it. I mean, we both loved it, but it was unlike anything else that was out there. We weren’t sure what we were going to do with it, but we knew we had to do something with it somewhere down the road.”20 Koch said the beer literally introduced itself as Arrogant Bastard Ale. It seemed ironic to me that a beer from southern California, the world of laid back surfers, should produce an ale with a name that many would identify with New York City. But such are the ironies of the craft brewing revolution. Arrogant Bastard was relegated to the closet for the first year of Stone Brewing Co.’s existence. The founders figured their more commercial brew would be Stone Pale Ale, but its first-year sales figures were not strong, and the company’s board of directors decided to release Arrogant Bastard. “They thought it would help us have more of a billboard effect; with more Stone bottles next to each other on a retail shelf, they become that much more visible, and it sends a message that we’re a respected, established brewery with a diverse range of beers,” Wagner writes. Once they decided to release the Arrogant Bastard, they decided to go all out. The copy on the back label of Arrogant Bastard has become famous in the beer world: Arrogant Bastard Ale Ar-ro-gance (ar’ogans) n. The act or quality of being arrogant; haughty; Undue assumption; overbearing conceit. This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory—maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beverage will give you more sex appeal. The label continues along these lines for a couple of hundred words. Some call it a brilliant piece of reverse psychology. But Koch insists he was just listening to the beer that had emerged from a mistake in Wagner’s kitchen. In addition to innovative beers and marketing, Koch and Wagner have also made their San Diego brewery a tourist destination, with the Stone Brewing Bistro & Gardens, with plans to add a hotel to the Stone empire.

Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place.

Some read biographies of famous Christians to try to short-cut themselves into a deeper walk with the Lord and successful ministry. They think: “If I just copy some of their techniques, beliefs, and quotes, I will have their success.” Such thinking, though, creates men who trust in the past work of other believers, living out of their zeal instead of tapping into the actual power of God which these men had. True men of God are only signposts to point the way. Their sign should point to heaven, to the Lord himself.

A successful presentation needs to be both buttoned up (orderly) and free-flowing (a conversation). The tension between the two, the fact that both things are happening at once, defines the process.

Just as you can’t rehearse your way to success, you can’t design your way there either.

It’s been said, “There is one thing that believers and nonbelievers have in common: they are both uptight about evangelism,” and that is true. When it comes to sharing the gospel, it seems we plan for failure far more often than success.

When we take a strengths-based view of people, we recognize their dignity. As leaders, one of the toughest jobs we have is to align an individual’s talents with areas of contribution. When we hire an individual, they are making a commitment to us and an investment of their time, energy, and future options in us. We have a mutual responsibility for their success. It is incumbent upon us to explore their strengths with them to find where they add greatest value. And we have to have a relentless commitment to finding that value. If the ultimate conclusion is that the individual’s strengths don’t best contribute to the organization, the loving thing to do is to help them explore where they will. If you honestly believe in the potential of each individual, you’ll embrace that responsibility courageously.

Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” —Jim Rohn

God measures success through obedience.

Most days I look like s**t. Today wasn’t much different. I always tell myself lies about how I will work out more or look better. I’m great at making plans in my head, coordinating the steps I’d need to be successful, but I’m not that good at following them. In that moment, my plan is the best thing ever. The idea is revolutionary and will change the world. Until it sits in a pile on the floor in my room with other “great plans” I’ve come up with and one day I learn that the idea wasn’t so original after all. Someone much smarter than me and more determined and organized created it. If this story is not found in a pile in my room, I’d be surprised. Yeah, even when I look good, I look bad. I have so much black under my eyes from lack of sleep you’d think that I was emo. I look like I am ready to kill someone when I’m exhausted (which is more often than not). It is funny to me since I’m not that pessimistic of a person but people who don’t know me and only see my exhaustion may confuse it for anger. Oh no, that guy may blow up a school. He may shoot this place up. I swear I’ve never even thought about doing such crazy things. I just looked p***ed off when I’m tired. What makes my already appealing appearance even worse is that I hate getting haircuts. I never did like sitting in the barber chair as a stranger cuts my hair, using those absurd tools to be precise with my hair follicles. I sit there hoping the guy doesn’t go all Van Gogh on me, and when it is over, I’m always asked how I think it looks. Like I know anything about that. Because now I’m an expert in fashionable hairstyles after sitting in a raised chair for five minutes. A few times I’ve gone in to get a haircut and told the guy it was awesome only to get home and realize it was awful. That was when I went a bunch. Now I will only get like two or three haircuts a year. That is how much I hate it.

When it opened an older man walked out. I thought he might be the store’s owner or manager–until he engaged Tommy. The man, it transpired, had a question for Tommy: Could he maybe sublet his space for a little while? Tommy and the man discussed the matter only briefly, but during the discussion, it came out that the man was one of the building’s tenants–a successful landscape architect–who was paying $ 8,000 a month for his space.

The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves. If we underinvest in ourselves, and by that I mean our minds, our bodies, and our spirits, we damage the very tool we need to make our highest contribution. One of the most common ways people—especially ambitious, successful people—damage this asset is through a lack of sleep.

Secondly, even with respect to the more mundane problems of the present life, pragmatism turns out to be impractical. Dewey said that the first step in knowing is to locate the problems which need solution; this is eminently practical. However, he has also insisted that ideas are anticipatory plans for some future operation, tentative programs of action, foresights for adjustment. Hence, one cannot have an idea or knowledge of the preexisting problem which must be the starting point for inquiry and knowledge! Since ideas are forward-looking, how can one know what a problem is, that a situation has certain features, or that these features are problematic? We need veridical ideas about the present before we can devise successful plans for the future. This again will bring us up against the necessity of answering standard epistemological problems, for the attempt to produce an accurate description of a real situation (and thereby know it as a problem to be resolved) assumes an adequate answer to various skeptical challenges. Dewey's theory, then, would make his own starting point unknowable and thereby preclude solving problems.

Transparency, honesty, collaboration, and consideration: there’s a reason they work in the business world, and it’s the same reason they work in the charitable sector. I maintain that my early success in marketing and advertising was not because I was the best con artist. It was because I’d internalized these concepts and implemented them routinely. As you will soon see, the overarching lesson is that making people feel good generates returns.

Being “real,” being transparent, and being open and honest about your organization’s efforts (both the successes and the failures) will help you build trust. Trust leads to commitment. Then it leads to retention, loyalty, major gifts, and planned gifts. True transparency in Engagement Fundraising includes such things as regular updates that provide value to donors by involving them with impact results and sharing stories from the field.

Greg Aloi Singapore Business Model Creating a successful business model is essential, whether you are starting a new venture, expanding into a new market, or changing your go-to-market strategy. Greg Aloi said you can use a business model to capture fundamental assumptions and decisions about the opportunity ahead, setting your direction for success. Greg Aloi Singapore Build a strong team Building a strong team is based on a strong system. After forming a team, you have to put a system and rules for everyone to follow so work can be organized. Having a messy team with no system even though your team is strong will not give you any good results

He first considers belief in God by way of the sensus divinitatis (way 8), articulating an Aquinas/Calvin (A/C) model of theistic belief. According to the A/C model, God has given us a faculty for perceiving God that is analogous to sense perception (way 1). If the sensus divinitatis gives us true beliefs, and it is functioning properly in an appropriate environment according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth, then it gives us knowledge of God. Like perception, this would be a basic belief (not based on argument), but it would still be knowledge.

The way of the Essentialist is the path to being in control of our own choices. It is a path to new levels of success and meaning. It is the path on which we enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

It leads to what I call “the paradox of success,”2 which can be summed up in four predictable phases: PHASE 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it enables us to succeed at our endeavor. PHASE 2: When we have success, we gain a reputation as a “go to” person. We become “good old [insert name],” who is always there when you need him, and we are presented with increased options and opportunities. PHASE 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, which is actually code for demands upon our time and energies, it leads to diffused efforts. We get spread thinner and thinner. PHASE 4: We become distracted from what would otherwise be our highest level of contribution. The effect of our success has been to undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

Greg set out to change the QuickBooks development process by using four principles: 1. Smaller teams. Shift from large teams with uniform functional roles to smaller, fully engaged teams whose members take on different roles. 2. Achieve shorter cycle times. 3. Faster customer feedback, testing both whether it crashes customers’ computers and the performance of new features/customer experience. 4. Enable and empower teams to make fast and courageous decisions.

Evan was born on June 4, 1990, to a pair of highly successful lawyers. His mother, Melissa Thomas, graduated from Harvard Law School and practiced tax law as a partner at a prominent Los Angeles firm before resigning to become a stay-at-home mother when Evan was young. His father, John Spiegel, graduated from Stanford and Yale Law School and became a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, an elite firm started by Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger. His clients included Warner Bros. and Sergey Brin. Evan and his two younger sisters, Lauren and Caroline, grew up in Pacific Palisades, an upper-class neighborhood bordering Santa Monica in western Los Angeles. John had the kids volunteer and help build homes in poor areas of Mexico. When Evan was in high school, Melissa and John divorced after nearly twenty years of marriage. Evan chose to live with his father in a four-million-dollar house in Pacific Palisades, just blocks from his childhood home where his mother still lives. John let young Evan decorate the new home with the help of Greg Grande, the set designer from Friends. Evan decked out his room with a custom white leather king-size bed, Venetian plaster, floating bookshelves, two designer desk chairs, custom closets, and, of course, a brand new computer.

success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place.

Arianna Huffington used to buy into the notion that anything worth doing required superhuman effort. But she has since said that she didn’t become truly successful until she stopped overworking herself. “It’s also our collective delusion that overwork and burnout are the price we must pay in order to succeed,” she says.

One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work. In order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.

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