Jason Zook > Quotes

“Whose opinion is going to matter more—theirs or yours? Or, in other words, is it worth living a life that doesn’t make you truly happy just to please other people?”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Your personal values are things you need in order to feel like the best, happiest version of yourself.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“You could find yourself so busy striving toward one of these arbitrary goals, making tons of sacrifices along the way, only to one day realize all that sacrifice wasn’t even for something that would bring you long-term happiness or satisfaction.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Life is too short to wait until after retirement to live it.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“From a young age we are conditioned to want what society (or family and friends) tell us we should want. Whether it’s the careers we perceive to be successful (doctors, lawyers, et al.), to the status symbols that we’re told will make us feel accomplished (money, material things, awards, etc.), we are conditioned to strive for all of these things, and rarely do we question why we’re supposed to want them.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Risking rejection is simply the price of entry for pursuing a life that’s uniquely suited to what makes you happy.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“It feels like I used to be on a treadmill, constantly running with the idea that the treadmill would eventually land me in HappyTown. The faster I ran, the quicker I thought I’d arrive at the proverbial finish line.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“I want to succeed more than I’m afraid to fail.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Life is not about how many people we can get to say “yes” to us. Life is about finding the right people who will say “yes” time and time again.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“As I was evolving as a person, my idea of what a friend meant was, too.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Consistency takes discipline, courage, and effort.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“It turns out that having thirty items she really loved was way more satisfying than an overstuffed closet full of things she only half-heartedly liked.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Whatever those values are that drive you, start formulating your own definition of success based on how much of those things you can live out on a daily basis.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“when we moved and a friendship just sort of faded in the rearview mirror, I learned that the world actually didn’t come crashing down.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“the more you embrace what makes you unique, the better chance you’ll have of your ideas standing out and being shared.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Sure, my projects have to make me money, but I’m always hedging my bets. I’m preparing for success and failure.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“done is better than perfect.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Living an intentional life, where you embrace your uniqueness, where you own your weird, where you call the shots, doesn’t happen because your decision coincides with the start of a new year, month, or week. It happens because you decide it happens.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“By focusing on completion, things will actually get done. Right or wrong doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are constantly moving yourself and your business forward.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Once you get that idea of perfection out of your head you can start looking at your ideas from a different angle.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Sometimes owning your weird requires you to believe in a vision that no one else can see, which often requires optimism. You have faith that in your journey to carve out your own path, things will turn out fine.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“There is no blueprint.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Had I not published the not-so-good stuff, I wouldn’t have been able to get to the actually pretty-good stuff.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“When it’s said and done, I’m glad I made the mistakes I made; they brought me to this moment.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Similar to my feelings about retirement, I didn’t want to spend all my waking hours “saving up” my enjoyment for later on in life. Instead, I wanted to find a way to bring more enjoyment into my daily life in the present.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Most criticism of you or your ideas will be from people who are judging you based on a very narrow, limited view of reality. All they can see or understand is what is inside the proverbial box. You, on the other hand, are trying to expand reality, trying to expand the proverbial box, so it’s hard to make sense of that.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Whenever you’re owning your weird, you’re going out on a limb and the outcome is often wildly unknown.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Don’t follow your passions, follow your effort.” Where you apply your time is where you will succeed, and that’s the secret to the perfect idea—the one you’ll put time and effort into.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“If you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time around, don’t you want people who are going to bring your average up?”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love

“Things like time with your family, time for exercise, time for hobbies, flexibility in your daily schedule, the ability to choose work that you actually enjoy. Those are just a few examples, but they are the examples of the things that are the foundation in the drawing of the blueprint of my life.”
― Jason Zook, Own Your Weird: An Oddly Effective Way for Finding Happiness in Work, Life, and Love