For me the starting point for everything - before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience - is work ethic. Without one of significant magnitude, you're dead in the water.

Many people erroneously think they have only one chance to succeed, and if they miss that chance, they are doomed to failure. In fact, most people have several opportunities to succeed.

Invest in great relationships, they will pay a lifetime of dividends.

Concentrate on what will produce results rather than on the results, the process rather than the prize.

Writers' bedtimes vary, but few have been spared the shock of a copy editor's early wake-up call.

Everybody's got an opinion. Leaders are paid to make a decision. The difference between offering an opinion and making a decision is the difference between working for the leader and being the leader.

The dash helps to indicate that the two thoughts are intimately related, and it's less stodgy than a semicolon, which would have performed the same function (and who talks in semicolons?).