Category: Books & Quotes

I collect quotes in the front pages of my journal as each year moves along. Here are ten that keep sticking with me:

1. “Don’t confuse motion with progress.” Peter Drucker
   
2. “Life is short. Stay awake for it.” Caribou Coffee motto
   
3. “Learning never exhausts the mind.” from the Da Vinci center of the CNL Building, Orlando
   
4. “All the world’s great suffering comes from the fact that kings do not know how to sit quietly in their own rooms.” Blaise Pascal
   
5. “Let me not lay my pipe too short of the fountain,
   never touching the eternal spring,
   never drawing down water from above.” Valley of Vision (Puritan prayers)
   
6. “With the interminable reportage of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial [in ’94 and ’95], the networks discovered an insatiable public appetite for the mindless repetition of scanty facts.” Eric Reed, Preaching when the News Intrudes
   
7. “One of the first, and most important duties which are incumbent upon us, is fervent and united prayer.” William Carey in 1792
   
8. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
   
9. “What is to give light must endure burning.” Viktor Frankl
   
10. “The danger is not that we are busy. The danger is that we are frantically active on minor fronts.” Pastor Isaac Hunter in last Sunday’s sermon

I have the unique privilege of serving as an executive in a very cool global organization. We’re doing a global restructuring this month (ok, this year) to stay true to our roots while leaning into the future.

One of our focal points is learning to share leadership through highly effective teams. Unfortunately, some of our old cultural baggage has translated this shift as “we need more meetings, with more people, so that everyone can have a voice in everything.” That’s not really what anyone wants, and it is certainly not what we need. That’s why I’m excited about Michael Hyatt’s review of Rework. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve entered Hyatt’s online contest here to win a copy next Monday. If I don’t win a hard copy I’ll probably Kindle it. (Michael, if you’re reading this, please don’t let this disqualify me from the pool of potential winners, ok?).

Hyatt summarizes: “The authors’ simple premise is that work does not have to be as complicated as we make it. We gunk it up with too much planning, too many meetings, and too much process and paperwork. What we really need to do is to stop talking and start working.”

Have you read Rework? What were you moved to start, stop, or change?