Quotes from Simon Sinek

I never imagined working with CEOs, congressmen or the military, yet I make regular visits to the Pentagon, stop by the Capitol now and then and sit down with leaders of all kinds of companies.

There is not a single one of us with a job that is not completely reliant in some way shape or form on others.

Listening is active. At its most basic level, it's about focus, paying attention.

The lives we live are a bit of a straight-hair vs. curly-hair thing. We often want what we don't have. In reality, it's not about better or worse; it's just perception.

There is a difference between vulnerability and telling people everything about yourself. Vulnerability is a feeling. Telling everyone about yourself is just facts and details.

My concern is that we live in an economy in which stabbing someone and waiting for them to complain before we remove the knife has become the normal way of doing business. When did we lose sight of the fact that it's not nice to stab people in the first place?

Wal-Mart's size and scale is so vast they literally have the ability to change the face of the entire country. If Wal-Mart were to make a decision tomorrow to refuse to sell a single product made with partially hydrogenated oils, for example, we'd probably see rates from heart disease decline a few years later. That's how powerful Wal-Mart is.

If we care about the average working American, then Wal-Mart matters. A lot.

If no one ever broke the rules, then we'd never advance.

If you look at the average age of a company on the Dow Jones index, it's something like 35 years or younger. In other words... success is no indication of longevity.

Notoriously outspoken, his sentences always punctuated with profanities, General George S. Patton was the epitome of what a leader should be like - or so he thought. Patton believed a leader should look and act tough, so he cultivated his image and his personality to match his philosophy.

Pilots have their names painted just beneath the canopy of their aircraft. This gives the pilot a sense of ownership for his or her jet. What's more, like cars, each aircraft has its own personality, so it's important for a pilot to get to know and love his aircraft.

Every one of us has the capacity to lead.

We can make up for lost money, but we can't make up for lost time.

Failure is not tied to money; it is a mindset. Failure is when we accept the lot we are given.

Money is a short-term result that incentivizes short-term decision making.

Great leaders see money as fuel, not a destination.

Offer someone the opportunity to rebuild a company or reinvent an industry as the primary incentive, and it will attract those drawn to the challenge first and the money second.

If you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they'll work for you with blood, sweat, and tears.

We should invest in people not ideas. A good idea is often destroyed by bad people and good people can always make a bad idea better.

A good leader shares information, even if they don't know the whole story. Without any information, people create their own, which causes fear and paranoia.

Like a good parent can't also be his child's best friend, a leader with authority requires some separation from subordinates.

It's always the organizations that are resource constrained that come up with the good ideas to win.

Good leadership is hard to measure on a daily basis which is why so many default to doing what's easy to measure instead.