Brian Kramp > Brian's Quotes

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”
― Steve Jobs

“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. —Steve Jobs”
― Clayton M. Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, then you don’t know what you are doing.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice – Christensen's Jobs Theory for Startups and Business Growth

“I used to think that if you cared for other people, you need to study sociology or something like it. But….I [have] concluded, if you want to help other people, be a manager. If done well, management is among the most noble of professions. You are in a position where you have eight or ten hours every day from every person who works for you. You have the opportunity to frame each person’s work so that, at the end of every day, your employees will go home feeling like Diana felt on her good day: living a life filled with motivators.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter
hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as
much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first
blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last
blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
― Jacob A. Riis

“We sense a dangerous disease infecting our modern culture and eroding hope: an increasingly prevalent view that greatness owes more to circumstance, even luck, than to action and discipline--that what happens to us matters more than what we do. In games of chance like a lottery or roulette, this view seems plausible. But taken as an entire philosophy, applied more broadly to human endeavor, it's a deeply debilitating life perspective, one that we can't imagine wanting to teach young people. Do we really believe that our actions count for little, that those who create something great are merely lucky, that our circumstances imprison us? Do we want to build a society and culture that encourage us to believe that we aren't responsible for our choices and accountable for our performance?”
― James C. Collins

“Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people’s victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn't conspire against you, but it doesn't go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.”
― Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

“You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg

“At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“Vulnerability doesn’t come after trust—it precedes it. Leaping into the unknown, when done alongside others, causes the solid ground of trust to materialize beneath our feet.”
― Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

“Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they’ll find a way to screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a good team, and they’ll find a way to make it better. The goal needs to be to get the team right, get them moving in the right direction, and get them to see where they are making mistakes and where they are succeeding.”
― Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”
― Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

“To me, it’s simple: if you’ve got the time, use it to get ready. What else could you possibly have to do that’s more important? Yes, maybe you’ll learn how to do a few things you’ll never wind up actually needing to do, but that’s a much better problem to have than needing to do something and having no clue where to start.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“In any new situation, whether it involves an elevator or a rocket ship, you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems. Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance one way or the other. Or you'll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-oneness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually perform.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“I had thought the destination was what was important, but it turned out it was the journey.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?

“Courage is a muscle memory. The tallest oak in the forest was once just a little nut that held its ground.”
― Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

“If all the facts could be known, idiots could make the decisions.”
― Joe Coulombe, Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys

“Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven't asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go.”
― Clay Christensen