The great mystery isn't that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn't play the trumpet very well.

There is the risk you cannot afford to take, and there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.

If you have too many problems, maybe you should get out of business. There is no law that says a company must last forever.

Replace your pursuit of success with the pursuit of contribution.

What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it is another matter.

What is the manager's job? It is to direct the resources and the efforts of the business toward opportunities for economically significant results. This sounds trite - and it is. But every analysis of actual allocation of resources and efforts in business that I have ever seen or made showed clearly that the bulk of time, work, attention, and money first goes to problems rather than to opportunities, and, secondly, to areas where even extraordinarily successful performance will have minimal impact on results.

Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then help to orchestrate the energy of those around you.