I never thought I'd be a person who would want to write books...I promise you not a single English teacher I've ever had would have thought that this would be going on right now.

No matter who you are or what kind of company or organization you work for, your number-one job is to tell your story to the consumer wherever they are, and preferably at the moment they are deciding to make a purchase.

It's about stories. If I can tell the story to America, whether it's Riesling or a boxer from Harlem, it will sell. I know on my gravestone it's going to be, 'Storyteller.'

I think the opposite version of me is the one we don't see, which is there are tens of thousands of outrageously successful businesses of very quiet, very calculated, calm executors who are confident. You can't be successful without being confident. They believe in themselves. They have their own version of assertiveness ... I think confidence matters and I think other things matter, like I would tell you empathy is probably why I'm more successful than confidence. I'm empathic to the customer, to my business partners, to my employees.

Your story needs to move people’s spirits and build their goodwill, so that when you finally do ask them to buy from you, they feel like you’ve given them so much it would be almost rude to refuse.

Hustle is waking up the day before you die and realising you gave it your all.

IQ is a commodity, data is a commodity. I'm far more interested in watching people interact at a restaurant with their smartphone. We can all read 'Tech Crunch,' 'Ad Age.' I would rather be living in the trenches. I would rather be going to Whole Foods in Columbus Circle to watch people shop with their smartphones.