Inspiring quotes for today

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” - Henry Ford

and

“Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license” – Gordon MacKenzie

Quote from Steven Moore

From Steven Moore:

The best don’t play it safe but push themselves, reaching for and even succeeding the best of their abilities. Sometimes they may go too far… But the proper reaction to such efforts is not to sneer but to applaud their daring, their willingness to give it their all.

Is your problem really a problem?

I just recently finished reading The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff and I came across a great view of problems and dealing with problems.

Compounding any problem (or nonproblem) is the traditional Western response to difficulties real or imagined: the tendency to see them emotionally, perceiving them as threats to one’s personal survival – threats that must be fought tooth-and-nail to the bitter end. In the East, such an approach to life is considered rather immature. Overdoing it, you know; wasting energy. Or, as the Chinese saying puts it, “Painting legs on the snake.”

So in solving problems, one needs to know if they are problems. Is what appears at first to be bad truly bad?

Leadership quote from former Microsoft Australia CEO Steve Vamos

I recently heard Steve Vamos, a former CEO of Microsoft Australia, speak at the Asia Pacific Symposium on Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

He had this to say about leadership:

Leaders must care.

If you’re interested you can read more about Steve’s talk and the symposium.

Insights from former Microsoft Australia CEO Steve Vamos

Along with ING Direct Australia’s CEO, I also had the pleasure of listening to former Microsoft Australia’s CEO, Steve Vamos. Here are some of the great pieces of information I took away:

• Talent retention is key. It is a key responsibility of your leaders and managers to ensure talent is not only retained but absolutely enjoying their time with the organisation.
• The two most important things in today’s economy are knowledge and connection. Whilst no leader can ever completely handle this, it is a journey that must be undertaken.
• Success can no longer be defined on an individual basis. Steve didn’t have an answer, but he made it clear that we need to look at new ways of giving incentives and recognising success – it can no longer be just about the individual.

There are two more great things I took away from him, but they deserve their own post each.

ING Direct Australia CEO – Keep it simple

I had the pleasure of seeing (love the orange suit!) and hearing Eric Drok, the CEO of ING Direct Australia, speak today. He runs Australia’s 5th largest bank based on one principle, in his own words:

Keep it simple

He then bases each job description around the key values that ING Direct Australia ad-heres to. Definitely a model I would love to use.

Michael Jordan Quote

Had to put this up because it goes along the lines of the title of my blog, it’s from Michael Jordan:

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

Quote from Scott Handsaker

This quote really hit home with me because of what is going on with infome:

If you’re not slightly embarrassed about your new web product when you launch, you’re too late.