Inspiration

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action." (Frank Tibolt)

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Identity

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." (Dr. Seuss)

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Happiness

"Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way." (John Stuart Mill)

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Impossibilities

"Things are only impossible until they're not." (Jean-Luc Picard)

Writing

“The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” (Mary Heaton Vosse)

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Life

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."  (Robert Frost)

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Parachutes

"The mind is like a parachute, it works best when it is open." (14th Dalai Lama)

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Football

"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." (Bill Shankly)

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Act now. For now is all you have

http://www.zealland.com/Treasure_Chest_Feb13-20,00.htm

Time

"If you love life, don't waste time, because time is what life is made of." (Benjamin Franklin)

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Persistence

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." (Calvin Coolidge)

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Family

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family." (Anthony Brandt)

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Perception

"Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites." (Anthony J. D'Angelo)

Our environment is neutral. It is the association of positive and negative meaning that we attach to our environment that creates our emotions.


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Decisions

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
Abd be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somwhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(Robert Frost)

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Direction

"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." (Professor Irwin Corey)

If you ever wanted the best reason for changing, this quote surely provides it. If you are doing things now that you don't like - and you keep doing them - picture where it could lead you in 30 years time. If you don't like that vision, change now!


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Laughter

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone." (Anthony Burgess)

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Regret

"When it comes to opportunities there are two types of pain, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret" (Tony Robbins)

Either get your head down, take the first step and start working on all those objectives you want to achieve but haven't yet OR be prepared for the regret later in life when you look back and think of all those missed opportunities when you just didn't take any action. It's your choice and both choices involve pain - just don't make the mistake of putting off the short term pain because it will lead to the much greater long term pain of regret.


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Excellence

"The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor." (Vincent T. Lombardi)

Next time you perform a task, the outcome of which you care about - ask yourself, "did I commit to doing the best that I could at that task?". If not, do it again, and do it better.


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Confidence

"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings". (Samuel Johnson)

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Work

"Work to learn
Learn to build systems
Build systems to generate cash
Generate cash to invest
Invest to become wealthy
Become wealthy to become financially free
Become financially free to follow your passion
Follow your passion to touch people’s lives
Touch people’s lives to make a difference in the world
And let that become your work…" (Jim Pirrie, Future Pace)

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Attempts

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" (Dr. Robert Schuller)

Surely one of the greatest questions ever asked and it becomes even greater when combined with the fact that there is no such thing as failure - only results. Failure is the association we make with negative results - and that negative association is what stops us from keeping trying until we get the positive results we are seeking. The most successful people in any field have 'failed' the most.

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Daring

"Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game." (Goethe)

As Robert Kiyosaki says, it's often the leaps of faith and daring that are the difference between achieving great things and having a story along the lines of, "oh, I would have done that but I was just too busy". Why are the busiest people in the world the ones that seem to be able to find time for more?


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Hard work

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all." (Sam Ewing)

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Scheduling

"What's talked about is a dream, what's envisioned is exciting, what's planned becomes possible, what's scheduled is real." (Tony Robbins)

Thanks Lee (@ Kale Software) for helping me out with the author of this one. This is a great truism. How many people have you been saying, "we must get a date in the diary", to? If you schedule something in - it's far more likely to happen.

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Risk

"An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before." (Mark Twain)

This made me chuckle. If you've started up a hi-tech business in the UK, you'll be all too aware that UK investors are far more risk-averse than their American counterparts. Perhaps that's why a massive proportion of the most successful Internet businesses (Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, Salesforce.com etc) were not started in the UK...


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Life

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live." (Martin Luther King, Jnr)

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Discovery

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." (Andrew Gide)

This rings very true for me as an entrepreneur. Very few businesses get great results from the word go but to stick with it you have to be extremely committed.

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Preparation

"The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare to win." (Bobby Knight)

The boy scouts' motto is 'Be Prepared' for a reason...


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Belief

"Man is what he believes" (Anton Chekhov)

So much of what we experience is down to perceptions and interpretations. Yes, there are a few hard facts (even these can be challenged by battle-hardened philosophers) - but all our perceptions are filtered through our belief-systems which explains why the same event can become a totally different experience for two different people.

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Circumstance

"We are not creatures of circumstance, we are creators of circumstance." (Benjamin Disraeli)

You have the power within you to make your dreams a reality, what's holding you back?

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Luck

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity" (Seneca)

So I wish you all the very best of preparedness, and an abundance of opportunities...


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Doubts and fears

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt” (William Shakespeare)

Let a doubt creep into your head and it will often poach enough of your cerebral processing to become the focus of your conscious or subconscious intentions. Once that happens the doubt or fear is well on the way to becoming reality.

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Learning

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." (Bill Gates)

Definitely true in business. To translate this into personal life, swap 'most unhappy customers' for 'biggest departures from your comfort zone'...

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Passion

"The happiness of a man in his life does not consist in the absence but in the mastering of his passions" (Tennyson)

What do you have a passion for?

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Craziness

Thanks to oneafrikan for Chris Rock's "Quote of the Year":

“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named Bush, Dick, and Colon. Need I say more?”

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Strength

“Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.” (J. Willard Marriott)

A fantastic quote that I find best used in reference to comfort zones. As many people at the top of their professions will testify, our experiences make us who we are.

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Planning

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

I've found exactly the same in business. Good project management is not about the quality of the plan - it's far more about the process of planning (i.e. identifying desired outcomes, next actions, dependencies and bottlenecks).

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Blogging

Definition of a blogger (for the uninitiated, a blogger is someone who writes blogs, like me), from Guy Kawasaki's blog

"Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do." (Guy Kawasaki)

Well - since I only quote others in this blog, then at least half of that is true here... what about the other half?


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Choice

"If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise." (Robert Fritz)

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Progress

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (George Bernard Shaw)

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Power

Great quote from Nelson Mandella on David Allen's blog:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we un-consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we feel liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." (Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech, written by Marianne Williamson)

Fantastic.

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Success

"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill)

Keep at it, because the most successful people will tell you that they've failed more than most. If you're afraid to fail, get over it - or you won't succeed.

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Dreams

"The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities." (J. Allen)

And so it is my intention to share some great quotes that might help fuel your passion to turn your dreams into reality.

Keep dropping by, this will be an inspiring place to visit.

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