I think most people are inherently interested in how their brain works, in what makes them tick.
— Simon Sinek
The single best machine to measure trust is a human being. We haven't figured out a metric that works better than our own sort of, like, 'There's something fishy about you.'
If we care about the average working American, then Wal-Mart matters. A lot.
The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.
Republicans are completely befuddled by Obama's 'star power' and don't seem to have a clear or effective strategy to compete.
Believing that your competition is stronger and better than you pushes you to better yourselves.
Entrepreneurs must be practical experts. They needn't set out to be subject matter experts in what they do; they must set out to solve a problem or pursue some cause or purpose greater than themselves.
There are two kinds of experts: academic experts and practical experts. One is not better than the other, but they are very different, and each offers very different value.
Nike doesn't want to make products for everyone - they want to make products for champions.
A sour corporate culture can actually make an entire society unhappy. This means that a strong corporate culture can have a positive impact on a society.
Leave America and you'll find that the consumers in many other countries enjoy watching advertising. Not because the products are better, but because the ads are produced to be entertaining. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are dramatic. Sometimes they are just beautiful.
TiVo and other digital recording devices have confounded advertisers. The ad industry sees the technology as a threat to their product.
The U.S. Constitution protects our privacy from the prying eyes of government. It does not, however, protect us from the prying eyes of companies and corporations.
The cost of leadership is self-interest.
Leadership is not about the next election, it's about the next generation.
I have friends who are majorly into the cosplay culture and have urged me to go to a convention for no other reason than to meet others like me.
The most basic human desire is to feel like you belong. Fitting in is important.
I look for the hotels that have figured out the comfortable balance - a modern room that is well designed, and really clean sheets.
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.
A five minute call replaces the time it takes to read and reply to the original email and read and reply to their reply... or replies. And I no longer spend 20+ minutes crafting the perfect email - no need to.
I use Apple because they're easy to understand and everybody gets it.
There is a difference between giving directions and giving direction.
Money is a short-term result that incentivizes short-term decision making.
Academic experts may not be good at doing what they are experts in themselves, but they are good at explaining the subject matter to others. They write books, teach courses and offer lessons and give steps others can follow.
Mergers are like marriages. They are the bringing together of two individuals. If you wouldn't marry someone for the 'operational efficiencies' they offer in the running of a household, then why would you combine two companies with unique cultures and identities for that reason?
Don't quit. Never give up trying to build the world you can see, even if others can't see it. Listen to your drum and your drum only. It's the one that makes the sweetest sound.
Corporate culture matters. How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything - for better or for worse.
The ad industry thinks their clients are their customers. They think the companies who pay for the production are the ones they are supposed to serve. So the ads they produce make their clients happy... but infuriate the rest of us.
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?
If no one ever broke the rules, then we'd never advance.
Actions speak louder than words. All companies say they care, right? But few actually exercise that care.
When I was in college, my school newspaper accepted an ad from a Holocaust revisionist organization. This would have been offensive on most college campuses across the country, but I went to a school with a very large Jewish population, so the ad, as you might expect, stirred absolute outrage.
I like stories of the classic hero, of good versus evil, the ones in which the good guys wear white and the bad guys wear black... and I love a good sword fight.
The quality of a leader cannot be judged by the answers he gives, but by the questions he asks.
There's nothing efficient about innovation.
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.
When we can communicate from the inside out, we're talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do. This is where gut decisions come from.
The Democrats' response throughout the healthcare debate? Give the people more statistics.
It's always the organizations that are resource constrained that come up with the good ideas to win.
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.
To become an academic expert takes years of studying. Academic experts are experts in how and what others have done. They use case studies and observation to understand a subject.
Champions are not the ones who always win races - champions are the ones who get out there and try. And try harder the next time. And even harder the next time. 'Champion' is a state of mind. They are devoted. They compete to best themselves as much if not more than they compete to best others. Champions are not just athletes.
The world is a bell curve. Classroom test scores, employee performance in a company or how many people really, really like you. No matter the population you're studying, they always fit neatly across the standard deviations of the famous bell curve.
Starbucks was founded around the experience and the environment of their stores. Starbucks was about a space with comfortable chairs, lots of power outlets, tables and desks at which we could work and the option to spend as much time in their stores as we wanted without any pressure to buy. The coffee was incidental.
The irony is, the advertising industry knows everyone hates what they produce. This is why they keep looking for new ways to force people to stay tuned.
Multi-millionaires who pay half or less than half of the percentage of tax the rest of us pay justify their actions by saying they pay what the law requires. Though true, the fact is they found ways within the law to beat the purpose of the law - which, in the case of taxes, is that we all pay our fair share.
Entrepreneurs see the thing they want or need, then try to figure out a process of how to get it. People who shouldn't be entrepreneurs see the standard process they need to go through to get the thing they want or need then decide if they want to go through that process.
Anyone can sell product by dropping their prices, but it does not breed loyalty.
It's important to slow down, every now and then, for no other reason than to call someone to say 'Hi.' It doesn't have to be a long conversation. Just calling out of the blue does more to let someone know you still care about them than nearly anything else.
I love science fiction - always have.
