One common behavior of late Stage 3 [in the process of a company's decline] is when those in power blame other people or external factors- or otherwise explain away the data- rather than confront the frightening reality that the enterprise may be in serious trouble.

Getting a project started is like moving a ship. It takes a lot of energy to build up momentum.

Jobs is the one area where I think Donald Trump is striking a chord that really resonates and should resonate. Both parties need to do a better job of rejecting poorly negotiated trade agreements. And I would put the president's TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, in that category. We have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs just in the state of Maine alone, and that resonates with people, and understandably so.

Our first responsibility as a leader is to create an attractive dream, to proclaim a destination, communicating it in detail to others who might be interested in joining our expedition.

Leaders are visionaries. They see the outcome. Leaders are communicators. They tell us what they're seeing. They hold the dream, letting us feel that it's possible. Our minds open up to what they show us could be. We dream with them. We get excited with them, drawing on all our abilities to create the future.

If you don't know what you want, you'll probably get what somebody else wants.

The most precious contribution we can make here on Earth is to create the lives we want to be living, communicating in all ways, to everyone around us, that success is really possible.