It’s often said that where there’s a will, there’s a way. What we overlook is that when people can’t see a path, they stop dreaming of the destination. To ignite their will, we need to show them the way.
— Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater
Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of them all, looks for the same sorts of opportunities I do, except that when he finds them, he buys the whole company.
— Peter Lynch, One Up On Wall Street
You are not a leader unless you are guiding people through the unknown to something better than they can imagine when they begin their journey. If you know where you’re going and how to get there, you’re a tour guide.
— Robert Ellis, Coaching from Essence
From Seth Godin’s No Thank You:
Civility fades in the face of entitlement.
The magic of an honest expression of gratitude is that the person saying thank you might benefit from it as much as the recipient.
About positioning and decision making, from Shane Parrish’s book Clear Thinking:
Time is the friend of someone who is properly positioned and the enemy of someone poorly positioned. When you are well positioned, there are many paths to victory. If you are poorly positioned, there may be only one. You can think of this a bit like playing Tetris. When you play well, you have many options for where to put the next piece. When you play poorly, you need just the right piece.
What a lot of people miss is that ordinary moments determine your position, and your position determines your options. Clear thinking is the key to proper positioning, which is what allows you to master your circumstances rather than be mastered by them.
It doesn’t matter what position you find yourself in right now. What matters is whether you improve your position today.
Every ordinary moment is an opportunity to make the future easier or harder. It all depends on whether you’re thinking clearly.