Category: Quotes

Quotes To Live By – Life Lessons from Richard Branson

richardbranson(Picture courtesy David Shankbone)

 Personal

“I enjoy every single minute of my life.”

“Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.”

“I made and learned from lots of mistakes.”

“If you can indulge in your passion, life will be far more interesting than if you’re just working.”

“And obviously, from our own personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge.”

“But the majority of things that one could get stressed about, they’re not worth getting stressed about.”

“I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family. We were a family that would have killed for each other – and we still are.”

Business

“You can’t be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.”

“I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive, then I believe you are better off doing nothing.”

“We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.”

“A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.”

“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.”

“I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.”

—–
Related Posts:
~ Quotes To Live By – Learning, Richard Bach
~ Leadership – 25 Years From Now
~ Story: Sow Your Seeds Today
~ Quotes To Live By

Leadership – 25 Years From Now

leadership_lumaxart
(Photo courtesy lumaxart)

In this interesting post at Psychology Today, the author brings attention to the work of Bernard M. Bass. Bass – a leadership scholar – predicted correctly in 1967 many aspects of leadership in 2000.  Its only prudent to pay heed to what he has to say about leadership in 2034.  

  • Leadership development efforts will continue, with ongoing training a requirement for leaders (much of the training will be web-based).
    [Hmmm …a second career idea.]
  • Second careers will become commonplace, as will 85-year-old employees.
    [There go my dreams of retiring by 45!]
  • Women will become the majority of leaders and directors in most organizations (he argued that this is due to their more transformational qualities and greater concern for equity, fairness, and social justice.)
    [Today, there are still write-ups aplenty about low percentage of women leaders in the corporate world. This will be an interesting one to watch.]
  • Leaders will make regular use of artificial intelligence to aid in decision making.
  • Biotechnology and genetics will play a part in both understanding leadership and in leader selection.
    [Wonder what impact this will have on the leaders are “born vs. made” debate. If it does supports the former, then the first prediction in this list will be up for question.]
  • We will “outgrow” bureaucracies, and most organizations will be flexible and mission-driven.
    [Hallelujah!]
  • With technological advancements, it will be much more difficult for dishonest leaders to emerge in organizations and greater transparency in organizational operations will be the norm.
    [Really hope this applies to political organizations as well. ]
  • Virtual work (e.g., virtual teams; web-based collaboration) will be the rule rather than the exception.
    [Google will be glad to see this & the direction they are headed.]

Read the full blog post by Ronald E. Riggio here.

Tactics For Taking Risks

“You can work your whole life to keep risk at bay, but it comes at the cost of boredom. You can elect safety, but you’ll pay for it with your life’s biggest desires.”
– Tyler Tervooren

Risk is a four-letter word these days and I don’t think it gets the respect it deserves. If you ever want to realize your dreams – if you want to start that business, find that true love, go on that adventure, or anything else – risk is going to become an intimate part of your life.

Tyler suggests in his article 5 things anyone an do to take on enormous risk.

  • embrace uncertainty
  • forget about the odds
  • plan, but not too much
  • take the first step
  • throw away plan b

Read the full article here.

—–
Related Posts:
     ~ The Next Step
     ~ Leadership Capabilities (& taking risks)

Links of Interest – 12Oct2010

  • The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough SuccessApple, represents the anti-business school philosophy. It’s approach is to put its resources behind a few products and commit to making those products exceptionally well. “I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done” says Steve Jobs.
  • For me, Google’s Android has always been “geeky”. You might still love it, and this cool application could be one reason why.
  • More Google news: this time it’s about them investing (as much as $ 1.5b) in offshore wind farms. Yesterday it was about Google investing in self driving car technology, today it is wind farms, what next in line? A storm is already brewing in the academic circles about these investments.
  • World’s youngest CEO (at 14) of a multi-national company. On the board of the World Bank. Youngest ever member of the World Economic Forum. Who is this it?