Rasmus Hougaard > Quotes

“Imagine life as a game where you’re juggling five balls in the air. The five balls are work, family, health, friends, and happiness. You’ll soon find out that your work is a rubber ball; if you drop it, it bounces back into your hands. But the other four balls are made of glass. If you drop any of them, they’ll be forever damaged, broken, or completely destroyed. They’ll never be the same again. So work effectively when you’re at work and go home on time. Give the necessary time to your family and your friends and look after yourself. A value only has value if it is valued.3”
― Rasmus Hougaard, One Second Ahead: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness

“A good leader must understand what makes a good life and how to help people find that. A leader’s job is not to provide a paycheck and benefits: It’s about helping people be truly happy and find meaning in their work and life. When a leader succeeds with this, it unlocks real performance.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“Leadership today is about unlearning management and relearning being human.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“External initiatives and perks never truly motivate people for the long term. Instead, only internal drivers—such as meaningful engagement, connectedness, and feeling valued—can engage employees on the deeper level needed for long-term commitment and productivity.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“A Chinese proverb says, “There is no way to compassion; compassion is the way.” Asking how you can be of benefit to others is a way to compassion. Compassion is something we create by applying it to every interaction we have.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way

“As Evelyn Bourke, CEO of Global Healthcare Company, shared with us: “Treat others as you would want to be treated. Take time to imagine what they will feel like when they hear difficult news. Go through the emotions they will experience, so that you are ready to embrace any reaction they may have of anger, frustration, or sadness.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way

“El punto de partida del conocimiento de uno mismo es el mindfulness. En un entorno de trabajo confuso y distraído, la atención y la conciencia (las dos características centrales del mindfulness) son las cualidades principales para la eficacia del rendimiento mental y para una autogestión efectiva.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, La mente del líder: Cómo liderarte a ti mismo, a tu gente y a tu organización para obtener resultados extraordinarios

“We’re chasing pleasure in new business successes, more praise, and better pay, hoping it will make us happy. But it doesn’t. It just puts us on the treadmill of wanting more and more. This is not to say pleasure is wrong. Pleasure is great. It adds flavor to life. But pleasure is like eating honey from the blade of a knife. It tastes great, but if we’re not careful, we may hurt ourselves by craving more. And never mistake it for happiness.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“Thomas Davenport, author of The Attention Economy, wrote: “Understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“To lead others effectively, we must learn to open our mind and avoid mental rigidness and judgment.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“You may be asking yourself, “Why should I have compassion for a person who is hard to deal with?” The answer is simple: because of common humanity. They too want to be happy, but have struggles, just like you do.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way

“In an extensive longitudinal experiment, researchers found that doing acts of kindness for others consistently makes people happier than focusing on themselves.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“Based on this research, we have conclusively found that three mental qualities stand out as being foundational for leaders today: mindfulness (M), selflessness (S), and compassion (C). Together, we call these foundational skills MSC leadership.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“Real planning requires slowing down, so that you can speed up. It’s an investment in time up front that has significant payback down the road.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, One Second Ahead: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness

“As an ancient Chinese proverb says, “Observe your thoughts as they become actions. Observe your actions as they become habits. And observe your habits as they shape your life.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“Wisdom without compassion is ruthlessness, compassion without wisdom is folly.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“When you have compassion for people who are different from you, especially when they are suffering, you see the world from their perspective, and that additional vantage point brings you closer to seeing things as they are, not as you imagine them to be.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way

“In its pursuit of fame, it drives you to seek others’ approval. This, in turn, creates a likeability bias that prevents you from doing hard things.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way

“The question: What is the purpose of business? Nand’s answer: “Business is the creator and preserver of civilization.”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

“Approximately 40 percent of CEOs are MBAs.2 Many large-scale studies have found that leadership based solely on MBA-trained logic is not enough for delivering long-term sustainable financial and cultural results, and that it often is detrimental to an organization’s productivity. In one study, researchers compared the organizational performance of 440 CEOs who had been celebrated on the covers of magazines like BusinessWeek, Fortune, and Forbes. The researchers split the CEOs into two groups—those with an MBA and those without an MBA—and then monitored their performance for seven years. Surprisingly, the performance of those with an MBA was significantly worse.3 Another study published in the Journal of Business Ethics looked at the results of more than five thousand CEOs and came to a similar conclusion.4”
― Rasmus Hougaard, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results