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The merchant must be no more pessimist than optimist, since pessimism induces him to hold back his capital but optimism induces him to take such risks that he has more to tear than to hope. Abu al'Fadl Ja'far al-Dimishqi (c. 9th century) Arab writer. The Beauties of Commerce Business pays ... philanthropy begs.
Sometimes, we need an obstacle to challenge us and push us further than we would if things were always status quo. I'd say one example is the market crashing. It's like, just when we started to get into a rhythm, everything changed! But, it taught us a great deal about how we do business and how we can improve.
Business, life itself, is damned hard work if you wanna be good at it. Actually, that's precisely wrong. Business ceases to be work when you're chasing a dream that has engorged you. ("Work should be more fun than fun" - Noel Coward.) And if the passion isn't there. then biotech and plumbing will be equal drags.
Now I am not unpatriotic, and I want to do my bit, so I hereby offer my services to my President, my country and my friends to do anything, outside of serving on a commission, that I can in this great movement. But you will have to give me some idea of where "confidence" is. And just who you want it restored to.
We get twitted now and then on how we made this country. Well, we took the whole business, of course. It's not just that corner that we took from Mexico. When we got it all together, we got a very shapely country-the best continental cut in all the world, between the two oceans and in the right temperature zone.
What starting your company means: you will lose your stable income, your right to apply for a leave of absence, and your right to get a bonus. However, it also means your income will no longer be limited, you will use your time more effectively, and you will no longer need to beg for favours from people anymore.
You have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention.
I feel constantly the tension of the quarterly cycles, the drive to produce shareowner value at the cost sometimes of customer value and employee value. [But] if you take equal care of the employees, they will take equal care of the customers and then we will get an equal or better opportunity for our shareowners.
Be methodical if you would succeed in business, or in anything. Have a work for every moment, and mind the moment's work. Whatever your calling, master all its bearings and details, its principles, instruments and applications. Method is essential if you would get through your work easily and with economy of time.
I always feel like 'as long as I'm doin' what I love to do, the money's naturally gonna come.' When you start thinkin' business and you start thinkin' 'What's hot? What's the wave? Who is hot? Let's get at that person,' it becomes a point where you're tryin' to strategize to make money. And that's always a gamble.
If you want to be more productive, then start at the start: get there on time. Whether it is a meeting, a flight, an appointment or a date, it's important to ensure you are there when you say you will be there. This may feel like an old-fashioned tip to give, but it has served me well for five decades in business.
What has been the most rewarding moment in your decades of entrepreneurship? Our last annual managers meeting. I gave my motivational talk and then I asked, How many people here started as a forklift operator, a warehouse person, a roof loader, or a truck driver? We had 600 people and almost half of them stood up.
Environmental policies are not just about good publicity; they are about responding to the moral imperative to address both climate change and resource depletion...A company culture that is based on measuring everything in purely financial terms will be crippled by a high turnover of staff, customers and suppliers
The essence of a successful business is really quite simple. It is your ability to offer a product or service that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs, ideally three or four or five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and to offer more products and services.
Labour was founded to make the lives of working people better and to create more opportunities for everyone. Whether it's aspiring to work as a nurse in a hospital or setting up and running your own business, Labour should be about ensuring fairness so that everyone has the same chance in life to reach their goals.
The key is to listen to your heart and let it carry you in the direction of your dreams. I've learned that it's possible to set your sights high and achieve your dreams and do it with integrity, character, and love. And each day that you're moving toward your dreams without compromising who you are, you're winning.
The reality is that business and investment spending are the true leading indicators of the economy and the stock market. If you want to know where the stock market is headed, forget about consumer spending and retail sales figures. Look to business spending, price inflation, interest rates, and productivity gains.
If you do not know where your competitor is, or overconfident and snobbish about your competitor, or are unable to comprehend how yourcompetitor became a real threat, you will surely fall behind him. Don't be the "they" in this idiom: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
I had accepted a position as a business analyst at Deloitte Consulting in New York. But before I went into that workforce, I decided to take a year off and went to India to do a social enterprise fellowship. It wasn't the best fit, but that was where a TV show in Korea found me and invited me to first come perform.
The record-breaking extreme weather events causing chaos across the globe should be a wake-up call. The transition to a low-carbon economy will be much more painful if we wait until there is a climate crisis before recognising that more than half of the world's fossil fuel reserves will have to remain in the ground.
The important word there is inspire. The key difference between managers and leaders is that managers tell people what to do, while leaders inspire them to do it. Inspiration comes from three things: clarity of one's vision, courage of their conviction and the ability to effectively communicate both of those things.
The 9-9-9 plan would resuscitate this economy because it replaces the outdated tax code that allows politicians to pick winners and losers, and to provide favors in the form of tax breaks, special exemptions and loopholes. It simplifies the code dramatically: 9% business flat tax, 9% personal flat tax, 9% sales tax.
It is true that we have not deliberately or wholly abandoned the Christian element in our tradition, but does that element count with us as it once did? Is the moral tone of the nation - its politics, its business life, its literature, its theatre, its movies, its radio networks, its television stations - Christian?
The important word there is inspire. The key difference between managers and leaders is that managers tell people what to do, while leaders inspire them to do it. Inspiration comes from three things: clarity of one's vision, courage of their conviction and the ability to effectively communicate both of those things.
Nowadays I find chocolate and/or chocolate-based snacks to be great motivators. Everyone loves chocolate. If someone has a lot of work to do, put a piece of fudge in a glass container (so they can see it) and let them know that if they accomplish their tasks, they can eat the fudge. You'll definitely get a reaction!
Because I was in the business of translating the 'X-Men' from the very successful comics, and taking the most popular book of the 20th century in 'The Lord of the Rings,' and making it into three movies, I hope people realize I wouldn't get involved in anything I didn't think was really going to be worth their while.
Digitization and new technologies are rapidly changing all industries, forcing them to prepare for a tomorrow that is unpredictable. This also applies to the industry of container shipping, ports, and logistics, which largely has been driven by the traditional business models focused on optimizing how you move goods.
Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business.
I think one of the big errors people are making right now is thinking that old-style businesses will be obsolete, when actually they will be an important part of this new civilization. Some retail groups are introducing e-commerce and think that the bricks are no longer useful. But they will continue to be important.
Steve Jobs is perhaps the most competitive human being I have ever met in my life, and yet I would argue one of the most artistic human beings I have ever met in my life. You can trash the movies all you want, but they do have an artistic component. And yet brutal competition knows no peers when it comes to Hollywood.
The real magic in National Geographic isn't how much money they have left at the end of the year. It's the fact that through their overall focus they are reaching hundreds of millions of people and educating people about the world. It just happens to be done in a business-oriented kind of way that is more sustainable.
There is no greater feeling in business than building a product which impacts people's lives in a profound way. When we look around at the thousands of people who have attended Summit gatherings, it makes us smile to see the new friendships, business partnerships and philanthropic initiatives that each event produces.
If you help a chicken out of an egg, most of the time that bird will die. If you help a moth out of a cocoon, it'll die because they don't go through that struggle and maturation. I can give you a fish for the day and you'll eat a day, but if I teach you to fish, you'll eat for a lifetime. Maybe even start a business.
The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.
If sustainability is going to take hold in the corporate sector in a big way - and we need it to - it will be when it produces big profits and faster growth. It won't happen because of an optional executive commitment to an abstract concept. It will happen because sustainability is a great business strategy. And it is
If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.
It's harder, but we're still finding oil in Oklahoma today. The bar has been raised on startup companies, but it can still be done. Every regulation and every rule limits you, but, yes, it can still be done. That's the beauty of living in a free country and having the freedom to have an idea and become an entrepreneur.
We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich.
In daily practice, the word brand stands as a surrogate for the word reputation. In fact, your brand acts just like a person. When you know a person's reputation, you can predict his or her behavior. You know what that person is likely to do or say-or not do or say-in any given situation. Your brand works the same way.
If you've been running a business for 38 years, you're approaching your 66th birthday, you've never owed a man a penny or done anyone any grievance in your life, and you feel hard done-by and try to protect yourself and your family, but go to prison, well if that's the society we're living in, I'm happy to accept that.
We're richer, but that wealth doesn't reflect durable, authentic economic value - which is hitting fast diminishing returns. The growth that we're pursuing is neither sustainable - nor is it, in many ways, real growth at all. Boardrooms from finance to autos to energy to pharma to fashion have learned that the hard way.
I use doodling for a variety of reasons: I use it to get clarity around a concept, I use it to relax, I use it to communicate ideas with others and get their refinement of them, I use it to map complex systems for companies, I use it to run innovation games for business, I use it to get insight on something puzzling me.
Think, for a moment, about our educational ladder. We've strengthened the steps lifting students from elementary school to junior high, and those from junior high to high school. But, that critical step taking students from high school into adulthood is badly broken. And it can no longer support the weight it must bear.
Fail your way forward. Recognize that Ready, fire, aim is superior to ready, aim, aim, aim. Straightforward trial and error produces better results than endless vacillating. If you're afraid to make decisions and act on them in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty, get a job. Failure's lessons are essential to success.
Trust the Universe. Trust and believe and have faith. I truly had no idea how I was going to bring the knowledge of The Secret onto the movie screen. I just held to the outcome of the vision, I saw the outcome clearly in my mind, I felt it with all my might, and everything that we needed to create The Secret came to us.
The great fear that hung over the business community in the 1970s was death by regulation, and the great goal of the conservative movement, as it rose to triumph in the 1980s, was to remove that threat - to keep OSHA, the EPA, and the FTC from choking off entrepreneurship with their infernal meddling in the marketplace.
The position of children as a group, in a commercial society, is not wholly advantageous. A commercial society urges its citizens to be responsible for things, but not for people. It is the unquestioned assumption of a mercantile culture that things need and deserve attention, but that people can take care of themselves.
More and more businesses are seeing the potential of a more sustainable business model, driven both by the firm belief that business can be a force for good and by the realization that the cost of inaction often exceeds the cost of action - notably when it comes to the growing threat of climate change and water scarcity.
There are pros and cons of experience. A con is that you can't look at the business with a fresh pair of eyes and as objectively as if you were a new CEO. Fire yourself on a Friday night and come in on Monday morning as if a search firm put you there as a turn-around leader. Can you be objective and make the bold change?
As an artist, illustrator, and photographer, most of my daily work was formed around the Art & Entertainment business, which was about packaging ideas that looked like they were crafted as artist ideas. In the distributed products, my artist credit was hidden inside the package of the artist or entertainment personality.