Resources for Inspiration

Favorite Quotes

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

-Stephen R. Covey

“If you do not change your direction, you will end up exactly where you are headed.”

-Ancient Chinese proverb

“Your beliefs become your thoughts.
  Your thoughts become your words.
   Your words become your actions.
    Your actions become your habits.
     Your habits become your values.
      Your values become your destiny.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

“It’s more important than ever to define yourself in terms of what you stand for rather than what you make, because what you make is going to become outmoded faster than it has at any time in the past. …hang on to the idea of who you are as a company, and focus not on what you do, but on what you could do. By being really clear about what you stand for and why you exist, you can see what you could do with a much more open mind. You enhance your ability to adapt to change.”

-James C. Collins

“There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish.”

-Warren G. Bennis

“Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them.”

-Warren G. Bennis

“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born…”

-Warren G. Bennis

“Before you are a leader, success is all about yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

-Jack Welch, former CEO, GE

“As leaders we do not create growth. The best we can do is create an environment that is conducive to growth. It is like planting a garden. You do not cause the seeds to grow. To grow is their natural purpose in life.”

-James C. Hunter

“Leadership…The skills of influencing people to enthusiastically work towards goals identified as being for the common good, with character that inspires confidence.”

-James C. Hunter

“..mangers play a vital and distinct role, a role that charismatic leaders and self-directed teams are incapable of playing. The manager role is to reach inside each employee and release his unique talents into performance.”

-Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman

“Positions and titles mean absolutely nothing. They’re just adornments; they don’t represent the substance of anybody. Every person and every job is worth as much as any other person and any other job.”

-Herb Kelleher, former CEO, Southwest Airlines

“If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.”

-Chinese Proverb

“You get the effort from others, not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within them.”

-James C. Hunter

“If you want to build a ship, then don’t drum up men to gather wood, give orders, and divide the work. Rather, teach them to yearn for the far and endless sea.”

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“There is a profound difference between information and meaning.”

-Warren G. Bennis

“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

-Thomas Jefferson

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

-Buckminster Fuller

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving; to reach the port we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail and not drift or lie at anchor.”

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

“If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any.”

-James C. Collins

“Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it time runs out.”

-Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”

-Diane Ackerman