Archive for quotes and illustrations
The benefits of mistakes
Posted by: | CommentsI recently shared a few quotes on mistakes here. And based on the comments, they seemed to strike a chord for many of you. I believe you can’t have too much instruction on the value of mistakes. So I thought I’d share one of my favorite illustrations on the subject. This is quoted in my book, Failing Forward
Working artists David Bayles and Ted Orland, in their book, Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A,” forty pounds a “B,” and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” hoever, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A.” Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
It doesn’t matter whether your objectives are in the area of art, business, ministry, sports, or relationships. The only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often, and fail forward.
From my files: Mistakes
Posted by: | CommentsI haven’t shared any favorite quotes here in awhile. Today’s selection comes from my file on Mistakes. I hope they inspire and encourage you. And if you want to keep them for future reference, try my filing system to record them.
You miss 100% of the shots you never take. –Wayne Gretzky
The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from someone who does. –Herbert Brocknow
Most of my advances were by mistake. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn’t. –R. Buckminster Fuller
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. –Thomas Carlyle
All discoveries in art and science result from an accumulation of errors. –Marshall McLuhan
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. -Albert Einstein
Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience. -Denis Waitley
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard
From my files: Quotes on Potential
Posted by: | CommentsThis week I’m sharing on Twitter some of my favorite quotes on potential. But I’m not always able to include them all. Here are the thoughts of some people, both famous and unknown, on our potential and how we use it:
An unused life is an early death. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it. –Soren Kierkegaard
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. –Soren Kierkegaard
The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort, who never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature. –Arnold Bennett
The real contest is always between what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else. –Geoffrey Gaberino, Olympic gold medalist
We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could. –William Graham Sumner
On our track to success, we have to fight the tendency to look at others and see how far they’ve come. The only thing that counts is how we use the potential we possess and that we run our race to the best of our abilities. –Denis Waitley and Reni L. Witt
We spend most of our 20s discovering all of the hundreds of things that we can be. But, as we mature into our 30s, we begin to discover all of the things we will NEVER be. The challenge for us as we reach our 40s and beyond is to put it all together – to know our capabilities and recognize our limitations – and become the BEST we can be. –Catherine B. Ahles
A man is a good deal like an automobile. You can’t tell how much gas he’s got in his tank by the sound of his horn, and you can’t tell how much horsepower he’s got under the hood by the noise of his exhaust. There’s usually the most noise where there is the least quality. –HP Thompson
What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. -Eleanor Powell
From my files: Connecting
Posted by: | CommentsI’m in Atlanta this week, preparing for the Chick-fil-A Leadercast on Friday. This event will be broadcast to venues all over the world, and you still have time to find a location near you. Just visit the website for more information.
One of the things I’ll be talking about on Friday is the different levels of leadership. And one key to becoming a better leader can be found in connecting with your followers.
So for today’s post, I’m sharing from my files some of my favorite quotes…
On Connecting
Start where people are before you try to take them to where you want them to go. –Jim Rohn
There is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you know what to listen for. –James Nathan Miller
Shooting above people’s heads doesn’t mean you have superior ammunition – it means you are a lousy shot. –Oscar Handlin
The two words information and communication are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through. –Sydney J. Harris
When I’m getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say – and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say. –Abraham Lincoln
Nothing can happen through you until it happens to you, and you can only communicate what you’re in the process of rediscovering. –Lloyd John Ogilvie
Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe. –Winston Churchill
Some leaders feel that by keeping people in the dark, they maintain a measure of control. But that is a leader’s folly and an organization’s failure. Secrecy spawns isolation, not success. Knowledge is power, yes, but what leaders need is collective power, and that requires collective knowledge. I found that the more people knew what the goals were, the better buy-in I got – and the better results we achieved together. –Mike Abrashoff
The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another [person’s] observation, not overturning it. –Edward Bulwer-Lytton
It’s not what you tell your players that counts. It’s what they hear. –Red Auerbach
I hope you found these quotes encouraging and helpful. If you want to learn even more on this subject, take a look at my book, Everyone Communicates, Few Connect.
From my files: Integrity
Posted by: | CommentsGreetings from another hemisphere! As you read this, I’m in South Africa speaking to thousands of people about leadership. (See Events in the sidebar for details.)
For today’s post, I thought I’d do something a little different. Over the years, many people have asked me how I find so much information and material for my teaching. I answer that I’ve been filing it all away since I was a young adult. In case you’re unclear on how old I am, that’s a lot of years that I’ve been filing. (And if you want more info on how I file, read this post.)
At this point in the conversation, the more strategic questioners have one thing to say:
“Wow. I wish I could see those files.”
So this week on the blog, I thought I’d give you a glimpse at what I file. I’m opening up one file drawer and sharing some of my quote collection with you. I hope it inspires and encourages you.
On Integrity
Integrity is: Doing what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, and how you said you would do it. –Byrd Baggett
Always believe what a person does, not what he says. –Fred Smith
One of the primary rules of navigation is this: What’s under the surface should carry more weight than what’s above the surface if the ship is going to make it through storms without capsizing. That’s exactly how it is with integrity. What’s under the surface had better be greater than what you’re showing to the world, or you’re never going to make it through the storms of life. –Pat Williams
Wisdom is knowing the right path to take … Integrity is taking it. –MH McKee
People of integrity expect to be believed. They also know time will prove them right and are willing to wait. –Ann Landers
Watch what direction the feet point, when the mouth stops. You want a consistency between mouth and movement. –James Dignam
Integrity is keeping my commitment even if the circumstances when I made the commitment have changed. –David Jeremiah
Personal integrity is important, not because it gets us what we want, but because it helps us be what we want. –Michael Josephson
A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given. –Mahatma Gandhi
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. –Samuel Johnson
Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not. –Oprah Winfrey
The time is always right to do what is right. -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Integrity is not a 90% thing, not a 95% thing; either you have it or you don’t. –Peter Scotese
Integrity has no need of rules. –Albert Camus
In order to be a leader a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence the supreme quality for a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. If a man’s associates find him guilty of phoniness, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. –Dwight D Eisenhower
