Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's sights and pushing toward the horizon.

Anytime you're tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you're doing and upserve instead.

When the reward is the activity itself--deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one's best--there are no shortcuts.

I don't think it's a Western thing to really talk about intrinsic motivation and the drive for autonomy, mastery and purpose. You have to not be struggling for survival. For people who don't know where their next meal is coming, notions of finding inner motivation are comical.

In economic terms, we've always thought of work as a disutility - as something you do to get something else. Now it's increasingly a utility - something that's valuable and worthy in its own right.

If you create something, whether it's a painting or a company, I think if you care about it, you have some obligation to go out and tell people about it.

In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough.