“The team was a meritocracy in which performance alone was rewarded. As I got better and my team started winning championships for my school, my status as freakishly tall black kid became a badge of accomplishment and inclusion.”— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
We are very porous now, and it isn't just through neurotechnology, it is through all modes of technology that are designed to interpret and change our cognitive and effective functioning. So as I wrote this book, it is more of a call to recognise that in the modern era we have to expand our notion of liberty to include the right to cognitive liberty.
— Nita FarahanyNeuroethicist & Duke Law professor specializing in neurorights and genetics policy
Most great sellers and leaders figure out the things they love about their job – what they would do for free – and set up the infrastructure to intentionally avoid the parts that force them to show up inauthentically.
— Colin CogginsPeople don't gravitate towards perfection. People like people like themselves. And that's another definition of 'selling,' when someone can see themselves in you.
— Colin CogginsWe've never met anybody that has changed the world without moving people. We've never met anyone that changed their own world without moving people. Moving people is not a 'yucky' thing. Martin Luther King Jr. moved people.
— Colin CogginsAny time you are trying to influence somebody or get them to make a decision that's good for them you are selling. Whether you're selling a product, whether you're selling an idea, whether you're selling your child on whether they should eat their vegetables.
— Garrett BrownInventor of the Steadicam camera stabilization system
Selling is about creating agency in the people that you are talking to so that they feel like they are part of the decision-making process. Selling is wanting to ask questions that you really want to know the answers to. Not ones that you have to ask.
— Colin CogginsMy wife Freada coined a phrase, distance travelled. We're very interested in where somebody started in life, and what hurdles and barriers they have already overcome in their journey – and how that grit has got them to where they are now.
— Mitch KaporFounder of Lotus Software & Digital Rights Pioneer
There were large segments of the population with tremendous talent, who were being overlooked and underestimated because they didn't have the right 'pedigree.' – These individuals had fabulous business ideas and were genuinely going to change the world as they were solving real problems.
— Mitch KaporFounder of Lotus Software & Digital Rights Pioneer
We have lived through an era where success has been defined only in financial terms- leaving out any consideration of the impact of business on communities or the world. Just because accounting standards don't require you to measure certain things, doesn't mean those things aren't real.
— Mitch KaporFounder of Lotus Software & Digital Rights Pioneer
Most of the venture backed businesses, and venture capital firms, are a mirror-tocracy not a meritocracy! Senior executives are disproportionately drawn from a narrow stratum of society – in the US, this means Ivy-League Schools such as Stanford. They tend to be overwhelmingly white (and increasingly now Asian) but certainly overwhelmingly male.
— Mitch KaporFounder of Lotus Software & Digital Rights Pioneer
If one aspires to make a positive impact on the world, shouldn't we strive for innovative solutions, perhaps even for a disease as formidable as cancer?
— Maurice SaatchiCo-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency
Could there be room for innovative methods that could potentially benefit those in the same position as Josephine Hart and countless others?
— Maurice SaatchiCo-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency
The court is primarily interested in the effort made, in the attempt. That is what truly counts.
— Maurice SaatchiCo-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency
There will be no cure for cancer until real doctors with real patients in real hospitals can attempt an innovation.
— Maurice SaatchiCo-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency
The essence of this connection lies in an enduring quest to effect positive change in the world. The judgement criteria revolve around whether the individual in question endeavored to make the world a better place.
— Maurice SaatchiCo-Founder of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency
I fell in love with the process first – they sometimes call it the grind. I fell in love with movement, with training, with everything between the competitions – and falling in love with that was instrumental to me because now, when things don't go right, and I feel vulnerable or emotional, I can dip into that state.
— Sally FitzgibbonsProfessional surfer and multiple-time world championship competitor