Category Archives: Quotes

Leadership Quote – The Courage to Continue – Churchill

Quotes

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston S. Churchill

Have you heard this leadership quote?

Winston Churchill is talking about the fact that when we win, or when we lose, it is often still not the end of the game. If we keep going, keep learning, and keep trying, we can turn our fortunes around.

Quote Churchill failure not fatal Courage to Continue

Never Give Up, Never Give Up, Never Give Up

Having the courage to continue is not always easy. Life gets in the way – things get busy and we get busy. And sometimes our own thoughts work against us – “I knew I couldn’t do it,” or “Why do these things always happen to me?”

Having the courage to continue means working through all of these things – that little voice saying you can’t do it, the market conditions changing, the failures you encounter both small and large. By working through them to the other side you are gaining something special. One is a new level of determination, a new level of grit.

Angela Duckworth and Carol Dweck both found that it wasn’t necessarily the students with the highest IQ that made the best grades in the end, it was the students with the highest level of stick-to-it-ive-ness, where they would keep going even when things got hard. They had the highest levels of grit.

Winston Churchill is also right. How many times have you seen the star student or the star football player from high school, now down on their luck, broke and in debt? Success is not final – you need a level of grit to keep going, even when you are not in your element.

And likewise, how many times have you heard of someone going from broke or homeless to leading a successful, stable life, or even becoming a millionaire? Their failure was not final either.

It was their courage to continue that counted.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – Learn from Failure and Make Mistakes – Watson

Quotes

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because that’s where you will find success.” – Thomas J. Watson

Have you heard this leadership quote?

Thomas J. Watson is saying there is a difference in the way you can react when you fail. You can be discouraged and give up. Or you can learn your lessons from the failure and use those to improve on your next try. When you keep trying in this way, finding success is just a matter of when.

Quote Watson Make Mistakes and Learn

The Definition of Insanity

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.

Likewise when we try something and fail, if we don’t change or grow from that failure then we are in that same definition of insanity. But failure gives us a unique gift. For those of us mature enough to see it, that gift is a lesson wrapped in a little bit of hurt. After all, not many people like to fail.

Seeing the good in failure and seeing the lessons in failure can be a tough thing to do. Our ego might be hurt – we might make excuses or find reasons for that failure that don’t belong to us. “It was their fault,” or “The market just isn’t right,” or “It just wasn’t the right time,” are all things that aren’t to do with us. And if they aren’t to do with us, then we can’t fix them.

The downfall with blaming others or our external situation when something goes wrong is that it also means we cannot control it. And if we cannot control it, we cannot improve it, we cannot make it better for next time. What Thomas J. Watson is saying in his quote is don’t be discouraged by failure, use it to learn. And when you learn and put those lessons into your next attempt, then it is only a matter of time before you win.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – You Don’t Learn by Following Rules – Branson

Quotes

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” – Richard Branson 

Have you heard this leadership quote?

Richard Branson is talking about the value of learning from your actual experiences, instead of learning from a book. And this is particularly useful, and particularly true, when it comes to entrepreneurship and starting a business.

Quote Richard Branson Learn by doing

There Are Some Things You Must Learn By Doing

They say if you tell someone something, they recall only a small portion of what you taught them. But if you have them do it with you, they will recall nearly 100% and that lesson will stick with them significantly longer.

Likewise, there are some things that you just can’t learn from books. Sure, you can learn a math solution. Two plus two will always equal four. Probability and statistics will have the same equations for the same things you need to figure out. Spelling doesn’t change when you’re writing a book, and the elements of science will largely remain the same as what you can read about.

But when you are putting something out there in the world – an idea, a service, a product, you may now know in advance how people will react to it. Sure, you might have a rough idea – maybe you have done some product testing, maybe customer have requested a new feature. But things can evolve in peculiar ways. Customers may change their habits. The market may change, the economy may change, trends come and go.

And so you have to learn by walking and falling down – you have to “do”, and adjust when the market feedback tells you that something is working (i.e. you should do more of it) or not working (i.e. time to pivot in to something else).

As long as you are learning, and never give up, you will have success. It is only a matter of when.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – You Can Have Everything You Want – Zig Ziglar

Quotes

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

Have you heard this leadership quote from Zig Ziglar?

Zig Ziglar is talking about a very special thing, that has made thousands of millionaires over the years. He is talking about the value you bring to the marketplace.

Quote Zig Ziglar You Can Have Anything You Want

Helping Other People Brings Them Value

An it’s value that they are often willing to pay for. Think about your favorite service, or thing you like to do or buy. Maybe it’s an online shopping site, maybe it’s an activity, but whatever it is if you like it a lot, chances are you pay for that service. And that service is provided by someone – maybe a person, maybe a business, but the point is that person is helping you get what you want.

And by helping you get what you want, you are paying them money, and they are working their way to being able to have whatever they want in return.

The more people you help, the more value you bring, the more money you are able to earn.

Now, can you change the amount of value you bring to the marketplace?  Of course! If you currently earn $15 an hour flipping burgers, can you learn a new skill and earn $18 an hour? Of course you can.

Could you learn a particular skill, or set of skills that earned you $50 an hour? $100 an hour? $1,000 an hour or more? Yes you can. A surgeon is paid more than a window washer, and an accountant is paid more than a taxi driver. All of these skills are learnable and there are a million variations in between.

Does it take time to change the value you bring to the marketplace? Of course it does. But if you know your direction and spend time on it every day, you will be there before you know it.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – Missions are Better than Plans – Seth Godin

Quotes

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“Plans are great but missions are better. Missions survive when plans fail, and plans almost always fail.” – Seth Godin

Have you heard this leadership quote from Seth Godin?

He is talking about giving your people something bigger than themselves to believe in – a mission.

Quote Seth Godin Missions are better than plans

Giving yourself or your team a mission – even bigger than “Starting with Why”

Simon Sinek’s famous book, “Start With Why” gave his audience the reason most companies succeed where others fail – they have given their people a strong enough “why” behind what they do, that they would follow and work on even when things are hard.

Think about it in your own life – how often would you do something for your family that you wouldn’t even do for yourself – help them out, give them time, go to work at a job you hate to keep a roof over their head, all because they are your “why” and it’s strong enough for you to keep going.

It’s the same when a company has a strong enough reason too. If it’s a real something for their people to believe in, they will put in hours above and beyond the norm to help make that vision happen.

Now what Seth Godin is saying is even beyond starting with “Why”, it is giving your team a mission. A mission is something that everyone is invested in. It is something bigger than just one person, and it is something beyond just money or a paycheck.

Most executives make “Plans”, then they change those plans frequently when they haven’t got results in three months and the stock market reacts poorly to their earnings report. But not Amazon. CEO Jeff Bezos made the mission very clear at Amazon – Obsess over customers. Make their lives ridiculously easy. Make buying easy, make getting what they want easy. And even though the profit has taken a long time to grow (more than a three month cycle or single earnings report), it has now made him the richest man in the world.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – If It Scares You, it Might Be a Good Thing To Try

Quotes,

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.” – Seth Godin

Have you heard this leadership Quote?

Seth Godin is talking about doing the very thing that scares you, and there is a good reason behind it.

Seth Godin Quote If it scares you try

Too often we stop, when what we need to do is start.

We stop out of boredom perhaps, or we stop because it’s too hard. We stop because we can’t see the way forward, or we stop because someone (who doesn’t know any better) said we should.

But most often we stop out of fear – fear that we might look silly, fear that we’ll fail, a fear that someone might make a comment or tell us we’re not good at what we’re doing, and a fear that they’re right.

But what Seth Godin is saying is: Feel the fear and do it anyway, because on the other side of that fear is success.

If you stop every time you feared a negative comment or feared someone else would be better than you, or that you might fail, then you would never do anything of consequence. And here’s the thing – you WILL fail, I can almost guarantee it. I can say that because if you ever look at the lives of people who have made millions, if not billions of dollars, they have actually failed dozens of times.  Sometimes hundreds of times. But they worked through that failure and they mastered their fear to become a success.

To coin another Seth Godin term (Seth Godin fans will get this), they tamed their lizard-brain and they shipped it anyway.

What is it that you fear? Can you do it anyway and see what will happen? At worst you might learn something, at most you might bring about your dreams.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – A Chance to Work with Pride – W. Edwards Deming

Quotes,

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride.” – W. Edwards Deming

Have you heard this leadership quote?

William Edwards Deming lived from 1900 to 1993 and was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. He is well known for his work on operations including statistical process control and the Plan-Do-check-Act (PDCA) cycle.

Deming Quote People Want to Work With Pride

Give Your People a Deeper Meaning

A chance to create something that one can be proud of is worth more to most people than a modest pay rise. Because creating something good, something meaningful meets some core emotional needs like belonging and achievement.

Abraham Maslow found it, in his “Theory of Human Motivation” – best known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. While food and shelter were important, once they were met people really craved belonging, achievement, and ultimately a sense of purpose in their life.

What is the real goal of life?

Often people mistake the goal of life to be “retirement” – to just get through their working life and be done with it so they can finally, at the end of their life, do what they want. Sure it’s true that not everyone can do a job they love, and sometimes we have to have the discipline to work through difficult situations to get to greener pastures. But what they fail to realise is that when a person retires it is often only a few short years until they pass away. They die – and it’s not because they are too old necessarily – after all, people live to be 100 more and more – it’s because they have lost their sense of purpose.

Now they don’t have to get up everyday, because they aren’t forced to, and no matter how much they said they hated they job, and even meant it, that job was a sense of purpose and a reason to get out of the house every single day.

Be Intentional About Purpose

So don’t wait for retirement to realise this. Can you give your team a sense of purpose in the work they do, now? Can you make it meaningful, and tie it to something greater than themselves? If you do, you might just win their hearts and minds, and you might just see performance you have never seen before.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – Paint and that Voice Will Be Silenced – Van Gogh

Quotes,

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Have you heard this leadership quote?

It is talking about silencing your critics. And the biggest critic for most of us reading is not some terrible person out there in the world. Realise it or not, most often that biggest critic is ourselves.

Van Gogh Quote Paint and the Voice is Silenced

Vincent Van Gogh Was No Stranger to Misfortune

Vincent lived in the late 1800s and is well known for his paintings now, but was only an artist by trade for 10 years of his life. He also only sold one painting during his lifetime, while his popularity exploded in the century after his death.

He struggled for many years with mental illness, and would have had many encounters with that voice in one’s head saying that they cannot do it. Which gives even more weight to Vincent Van Gogh’s quote, as he knew well what to do to achieve greatness.

How To Silence Your Own Self-Criticism 

The best part about Van Gogh’s advice was that it wasn’t something airy-fairy or intangible. He says all you need to do is do it – to start, to begin, and to try. By doing the very thing you are afraid of, that criticism will melt away. Your mind won’t have time to be negative as it is now too busy figuring out how you are actually going to pull this off.

And whether we have put something off because off fear – fear of failure, or even fear that we might have some success – “and then what?” – we can get through it by taking a little action.

What can you start today? What can you take action on? Start small, it doesn’t have to be big. But every little bit will get you one step further toward your goal.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – It Is Not Enough To Do Your Best – W. Edwards Deming

Quotes, ,

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.” – W. Edwards Deming

Have you heard this leadership quote?

William Edwards Deming lived from 1900 to 1993 and was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant.  Many in Japan believe that Japan rose to becoming one of the world’s largest economies through processes partially influenced by the ideas Deming taught.

Deming Quote Not Enough to Do Your Best

It is Not Enough To Be Motivated

If you are moving fast, make sure you are moving in the right direction. You might be travelling quickly but if you are on the wrong train, you will quickly end up in the wrong place.

What W. Edwards Deming is saying here is that if your team is doing their best, at least do them the kindness of ensuring that they first know what to do so they can do it well, but also why they are doing it so they can see the bigger picture.

Google Found The Same Thing

Nearly 80 years later, Google found the same thing in their project called “Aristotle”. In that project they studied more than 100 outperforming teams and found that clarity was one of the most common factors involved with a successful team. Clarity on what to do, clarity on why they were doing it. When a team had clarity then, and only then, could they work hard, travel quickly, and get to the place they wanted to go to – the result they wanted to achieve.

So give your team clarity on the work, ensure they know what to do – and ensure you know what to do too! Then when you work harder, you know you will be moving in the right direction.

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Quote – You Have to Start to be Great – Zig Ziglar

Quotes, ,

– See all the Leadership Quotes here –

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar

Have you heard this leadership quote?

Zig Ziglar was an American author, salesman, and motivational speaker who lived from 1926 to 2012. He recorded one of the greatest sales training videos of all time in 1982 called “The Secrets of Closing the Sale”, from which many  sales teachers have since garnered their methods.

Ziglar Quote You Have To Start To Be Great

It’s Time To Get To Work

Zig Ziglar here is talking about making a start, taking some action. This is really excellent advice but, as anyone struggling with uncertainty or procrastination knows, it is easy to say and tough to do.

But there is a magic in starting, and it is this: When you start to do something, to create something or to put things out there in the world, people will respond. Maybe it’s not a lot of people at first, but even with a small few you can gather the feedback you need to improve.

By starting, you are discovering where your best results will be. You can follow the clues of what your customers respond to, what they buy, or what they watch or read. And when you adjust based on those clues, you are one step closer to success.

That is the road to greatness

Which is why Zig is saying you have to start to be great. That starting, creating, and adjusting is what leads you to greatness if you never, ever give up. But hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dreams have been lost thanks to people talking a good game but never taking action or seeing it through.

How many times has someone said, when talking about something at a party “I had that idea, that is now worth a million dollars (or more).” Whether it was a product, a business, a movie idea or something else, the fact that they had the idea is completely worthless unless they also had the work ethic and discipline to take action.

So what ideas do you have? And isn’t it about time you to that first, small step?

– David McLachlan

Get the Leadership Card Deck or the Lean CX Score Book:

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

 

Lean CX ScoreGet "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.