Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One of the first things successful people realize is the old adage, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” That is, for you, the fact that your success and your course is up to you. This doesn’t mean that you do it all alone. It simply means that you take responsibility for your life and your career.
Get the most out of everything in your life; the happiness and the sadness, the success and the failure...get a good perspective of what life is all about. Let the orchestra of your life play all the notes, the high notes, the low rumblings of the difficulties and perplexities that all we all face.
An enterprising person is one who comes across a pile of scrap metal and sees the making of a wonderful sculpture. An enterprising person is one who drives through an old decrepit part of town and sees a new housing development. An enterprising person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life.
If you don't like how something is going for you, change it. If something isn't enough, change it. If something doesn't suit you, change it. If something doesn't please you, change it. You don't ever have to be the same after today. If you don't like your present address change it - you're not a tree!
Life without balance can cost you your relationships. Life without balance can cost you your health. Life without balance can cost you your spirituality. Life without balance can cost you your wealth and your happiness. So find things to motivate you from all areas of life. Your success depends on it.
And if I may be so bold to offer my last piece of advice for someone seeking and needing to make changes in their life. If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree. You have the ability to totally transform every area in your life-and it all begins with your very own power of choice.
Opportunity shies away from need, but opportunity is attracted by talent and ability. What you don't want to happen is opportunity to turn cool on you. You don't want to offend opportunity. So the only thing you present to opportunity is ability, performance and skill. Don't present need to opportunity.
Treat your body like a temple, not a woodshed. The mind and body work together. Your body needs to be a good support system for the mind and spirit. If you take good care of it, your body can take you wherever you want to go, with the power and strength and energy and vitality you will need to get there.
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. A successful business owner never stops learning. They educate themselves on the things they need to learn, and they never stop growing. They never arrive at a certain point and think, ahhh... now I don't need to learn anymore.
Your life, my life, the life of each one of us is going to serve as either a warning or an example. A warning of the consequences of neglect, self-pity, lack of direction and ambition... or an example of talent put to use, of discipline self-imposed, and of objectives clearly perceived and intensely pursued.
Any day we wish we can discipline ourselves to change it all. Any day we wish; we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge. Any day we wish; we can start a new activity. Any day we wish; we can start the process of life change. We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year.
We are all affected by five things. But the most important thing that affects us is our dreams--our ability to see the future. But here's why we don't reach into the future. We're trapped either by regret of the past or the routine of the present. So make sure that the greatest pull on you is the pull of the future.
What you want will pull like a magnet. Here's the other part. What for? Purpose is stronger than object. It's the 'What for?' that's even more powerful than the object. And the more you can describe in detail to stir the emotion and the intellect and the spirit and the soul, then the more powerful the 'what for' is.
Words in the mind are like colors on the palette of the artist. The more colors we have access to, the easier it is to create a captivating picture on the canvas, and the more practice we give to using those many colors appropriately and uniquely, the more likely we will be to create a masterpiece of self expression.
So, before you are tempted to give up or get discouraged, remember all success is based on long term commitment, faith, discipline, attitude and a few stepping stones along the way. You might not like the stone you are on right now, but it's sure to be one of the stones that lead to great opportunities in the future.
Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom. The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become. Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.
There's nothing you can do about the past. But, you can do a great deal about your future. You don't have to be the same person you were yesterday. You can make changes in your life -- absolutely startling changes in a fairly short time. You can make changes you can't even conceive of now, if you give yourself a chance.
You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel. You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective, you first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation.
Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written.And guess What? It's all available.All you have to do is go to the library.But guess what?Only three percent of the people in America have a library card.Wow,they must be expensive!No, they're free.Probably in every neighborhood.Three percent!
The Bible give us a list of human stories on both sides of the ledger. On list of human stories is used examples - do what these people did. Another list of human stories is used as warnings - don't do what these people did. So if your story ever gets in one of these books, make sure they use it as an example, not a warning.
All of the insights that we might ever need have already been captured by others in books. The important question is this: In the last ninety days, with this treasure of information that could change our lives, our fortunes, our relationships, our health, our children and our careers for the better, how many books have we read?
Leadership is the great challenge of the 21st century in science, politics, education, and industry. But the greatest challenge in leadership is parenting. We need to do more than just get our enterprises ready for the challenges of the twenty-first century. We also need to get our children ready for the challenges of the 21st century.
The greatest step toward success is self confidence. The greatest builder of self confidence is self esteem, and self esteem comes from doing the daily things you know you should do. Your self esteem will start to soar when you make some critical decisions - decisions to walk a new road, to start a new direction, to start a new discipline.
Live a vital life. If you live well, you will earn well. If you live well, it will show in your face; it will show in the texture of your voice. There will be something unique and magical about you if you live well. It will infuse not only your personal life but also your business life. And it will give you a vitality nothing else can give.
In America, one of the great liberal documents of the world is the Declaration of Independence. One of the great conservative documents of the world is the Constitution of the United States. We need both documents to build a country. One to get it started - liberal. And the other to help maintain the structure over the years - conservative.
All of the great ideas, without action, become stale and useless. The key to turning dreams into reality is action. People who have great ideas are a dime a dozen. People who act on their dreams and ideas are the select few, but they are the ones who gain the wealth, wealth and wisdom that is available. Someone will act today. Let it be you.
Always leave people with a solution; the heaven if you do versus the hell if you don't. If you're really skillful you can put the person into the future solution. Shoaff used to say, 'Jim, I can see you now in your new clothes, in your new home, in your new car. I can see others walking up to you.' The Promise of the Future is an Awesome Force!
If you want to have more, you have to become more. For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to become better. If you improve, everything will improve for you. If you grow, your money will grow; your relationships, your health, your business and every external effect will mirror that growth in equal correlation.
Most people are just trying to get through the day. Be committed to learn to get from the day. Don't just get through it; get from it. Learn from it. Let the day teach you. Join the university of life. What a difference that will make in your future. Commit yourself to learning. Commit yourself to absorbing. Be like a sponge. Get it. Don't miss it.
By our attitude, we decide to read, or not to read. By our attitude, we decide to try or give up. By our attitude, we blame ourselves for our failure, or we blame others. Our attitude determines whether we tell the truth or lie, act or procrastinate, advance or recede, and by our own attitude we and we alone actually decide whether to succeed or fail.
I have found in life that if you want a miracle you first need to do whatever it is you can do – if that’s to plant, then plant; if it is to read, then read; if it is to change, then change; if it is to study, then study; if it is to work, then work; whatever you have to do. And then you will be well on your way of doing the labor that works miracles.
Somebody said you have to love what you do, but that's not necessarily true. What is true is that you have to love the opportunity. The opportunity to build life, future, health, success and fortune. Knocking on someone's door or making that extra call may not be something you love to do, but you love the opportunity of what might be behind that door or call.
Failure is a few Errors in judgment repeated everyday. The man says, Well I didn't walk around the block today and it didn't kill me, so it must be okay. No, no, it is that kind of error in judgment that after six years has him out of breath and panting as he walks from his car to his office. You can't make those kinds of mistakes; it will end up costing you.
Our philosophy about activity and our attitude about hard work will affect the quality of our lives. What we decide about the rightful ratio of labor to rest will establish a certain work ethic. That work ethic - our attitude about the amount of labor we are willing to commit to future fortune - will determine how substantial or how meager that fortune turns out to be.
A few years ago I lost one of my dearest friends. He died at age 53 - heart attack. David is gone, but he was one of my very special friends. I used to say of David that if I was stuck in a foreign jail somewhere accused unduly and if they would allow me one phone call, I would call David. Why? He would come and get me. That's a friend. Somebody who would come and get you.
Learn all you can, don't be lazy. Nothing's worse than being stupid. Being broke is bad, but being stupid is what's really bad. And what's really really bad is being broke and stupid. Nothing's much worse than that. Unless you're sick. Sick, broke and stupid, that’s about as far as you can fall unless you're ugly. Surely that would be the ultimate; ugly, sick, broke and stupid.
You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.
Don't ask for the task to be easy... just ask for it to be worth it Don't wish it was easier... wish you were better Don't ask for less challenge... ask for more skill Don't ask for less problems... and for more wisdom It's the challenge that makes the experience. Life and it's colour and meaning and adventure for you is this collection of experiences. To wish them away is to wish your life away.
A well-fashioned day - with a beginning and an end, a purpose and a content, a color and a character, a feel and a texture - takes it place among the many and becomes a valuable memory and treasure. At midnight the winged messengers come and gather up all these pieces and take them off to wherever the mosaic is kept. And surely, on occasion, one messenger says to another, 'Wait 'til you see this one.'
I am a buyer of blank books. Kids find it interesting that I would buy a blank book. They say, Twenty-Six dollars for a blank book! Why would you pay that? The reason I pay twenty-six dollars is to challenge myself to find something worth twenty-six dollars to put in there. All my journals are private, but if you ever got hold of one of them, you wouldn't have to look very far to discover it is worth more than twenty-six dollars
So when somebody asks me to make a decision about a situation, I don't offer a solution, I ask a question: What are our options? Give me the good, give me the bad, give me the pretty, give me the ugly, give me the impossible, give me the possible, give me the convenient, give me the inconvenient. Give me the options. All I want are options. And once I have all the options before me, then I comfortably and confidently make my decision.
Discipline is the bridge between thought and accomplishment. Discipline comes to those with the awareness that for a kite to fly it must rise against the wind; that all good things are achieved by those who are willing to swim upstream; that drifting aimlessly through life only leads to bitterness and disappointment." And then he added: "Discipline is the foundation on which all success is built. Lack of discipline inevitably leads to failure.
It seems that every life form on this planet strives toward its maximum potential... except human beings. A tree does not grow to half its potential size and then say, "l guess that will do." A tree will drive its roots as deep as possible. It will soak up as much nourishment as it can, stretch as high and as wide as nature will allow, and then look down as if to remind us of how much each of us could become if we would only do all that we can.
Books are what you step on to take you to a higher shelf. The higher your stack of books, the higher the shelf you can reach. Want to reach higher? Stack some more books under your feet! Reading is what brings us to new knowledge. It opens new doors. It helps us understand mysteries. It lets us hear from successful people. Reading is what takes us down the road in our journey. Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written.
Take time to be quiet. This is something that we don't do enough in this busy world of ours. We rush, rush, rush, and we are constantly listening to noise all around us. The human heart was meant for times of quiet, to peer deep within. It is when we do this that our hearts are set free to soar and take flight on the wings of our own dreams! Schedule some quiet "dream time" this week. No other people. No cell phone. No computer. Just you, a pad, a pen, and your thoughts.
If you hear a good idea, capture it; write it down. Don't trust your memory. Then on a cold wintry evening, go back through your journal, the ideas that changed your life, the ideas that saved your marriage, the ideas that bailed you out of bankruptcy, the ideas that helped you become successful, the ideas that made you millions. What a good review-going back over the collection of ideas that you gathered over the years. So be a collector of good ideas for your business, for your relationships, for your future.
How about this miracle... God says if you plant the seed I will make the tree. Wow, you can't have a better arrangement than that. First, it gives God the tough end of the deal. What if you had to make a tree? That would keep you up late at night trying to figure out how to make a tree. God says, "No, leave the miracle part to me. I've got the seed, the soil, the sunshine, the rain and the seasons. I'm God and all this miracles stuff is easy for me. I have reserved something very special for you and that is to plant the seed.
Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, let them complain over what might have been, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, let them be discouraged, let them be revengeful and vindictive, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, let them become materialistic and empty, but not you. Let others become ungrateful and stop praying, but not you! Let others give up, but not you! For you know in whom you believe and you know that He is always able. Now, that's you!
Every time we choose action over ease or labor over rest, we develop an increasing level of self-worth, self-respect and self-confidence. In the final analysis, it is how we feel about ourselves that provides the greatest reward from any activity. It is not what we get that makes us valuable, it is what we become in the process of doing that brings value into our lives. It is activity that converts human dreams into human reality, and that conversion from idea into actuality gives us a personal value that can come from no other source.