Ivan > Ivan's Quotes

“On average, at least 95 percent of what you need to know you learn on the job. This is true for doctors, lawyers, nurses, investment bankers, and everyone else.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“There’s no such thing as an entitlement because no one is entitled to anything. If you plan to live off of the generosity of your neighbors, it would behoove you to endear yourself to them so that they actually want to help you, because you do not have a right to anybody else’s money. Nobody does. There isn’t such a thing. We all have obligations but nobody in the Bible has a right to anything. The word doesn’t exist in Hebrew because it doesn’t exist in the world. When anyone coerces you to provide such a right, it is not charity by the very definition of charity, which is voluntary giving. If you are being coerced to give your money to someone, this is theft.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“One thing that never changes—and business owners should always remember this—is that a business cannot last without making a profit.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“You are your children’s role models and they will learn to treat you (and others) the way you treat your own parents. If your children see you acting in impatient, rude, resentful, and angry ways toward your parents, how do you think they will behave toward you when you grow older? They will treat you just as poorly as you treated your parents, and why shouldn’t they? They’ll be faithful to your own teachings. If you can treat your parents with genuine service, then your children will learn to treat you the same way. They will learn to serve others, as well, and they will prosper for it.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“You don’t have to share everything with everybody. Not everyone must know about all parts of you—just the parts they need to know.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“Take out a dollar bill and look at it,” he said. “Now pat yourself on your back because you are looking at a certificate of performance.”
― Daniel Lapin, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

“There is only one way to make money: finding out what other people want or need and then providing those things to as many of our fellow humans as possible. This is the only way to earn money, no matter your occupation.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“money is the consequence of working, not the goal.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“If we build into ourselves a deep understanding and conviction that serving the needs of other human beings is the reason we profit, that the reason we earn money is because we are focused on serving the needs of other people, other people will see this. We must commit ourselves to these convictions. Then and only then will the money follow. The money comes automatically.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!” ... Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!10”
― Daniel Lapin, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

“Instead of focusing on imagined rewards, focus on serving God’s other children, for they are your customers.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“As you navigate your professional life, you will be faced with all kinds of trials and tribulations for which there will appear no feasible solution. Do you sit there trying to figure out what to do? No, you get moving. Problems—all problems—are solved not just by sitting and thinking, but by moving and doing.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“If you care about your customers as people—if you like, appreciate, and desire to serve them—you will be rewarded.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“Positive growth can also be compared to a remodeling project. The initial result is horrendous. You find yourself surrounded by excruciating noise, suffocating dust, and bedlam. Only when it is well under way do the benefits start to unfold. Similarly, the initial response to a physical or spiritual exercise program is frequently an intense desire to stop. But after persevering for a while, the positive emotions and benefits kick in. Growth and achievement that result from struggle, diligence, and sacrifice feel very good to us and make us feel happy down the road.”
― Daniel Lapin, Buried Treasure: Secrets for Living from the Lord's Language

“differences in economic performance are chiefly dependent upon spiritual rather than physical characteristics.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“Any dollar given to you voluntarily, no matter the physical form, is a certificate of performance and validation of a job well done.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“However many people you know now, you will always need to know more. You want to connect with as many people as possible to increase your chances of meeting the right people who will change your personal and professional life.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“In Hebrew, the Lord’s language, the word for time is ZeMaN, which is linked to the word for invitation. This serves to remind us that the passage of time is an invitation to make the most of it, to manage it effectively, and to integrate our understanding of how the world works with a true and accurate perception of the reality of time.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“God created us with an urge for the infinite. We need to embrace it and never surrender to the seditious and spurious summons of contentment cowering in the sanctuary of security.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“Success is always more likely when you are swimming with the current rather than against it.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“The business professional also must value his employees as well, for they are his most valuable asset. He must attend to their welfare.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“Worthy charity helps people. Unworthy charity that completely takes over a task makes recipients of such charity dependent.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“You cannot disconnect the future from the present and you cannot disconnect the present from the past. That’s not how time works. Time moves in a continuous motion.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“Give your due diligence to understanding business or you will have no place in it.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“we are all in business—all of us who work and provide services to our fellow man.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“I realized then and there that this word “right” is completely meaningless. And who, pray tell, has the obligation to fulfill this right? Anytime somebody tells you that you have a right to anything, be very suspect. Ask them who you can call to make sure that this right gets fulfilled. Because if there isn’t anybody who accepts the obligation to deliver on that right, you don’t have that right. That right is absolutely worthless if you cannot collect on it. And so the word “right” is, on its face, nonsensical. It just doesn’t mean anything. How can something be guaranteed to you if there is no guarantee that someone can and will deliver it to you? It wasn’t until later that I thought to recheck the water supply. To my amazement and relief, there was plenty of water. In my exhaustion I had somehow misread the dipstick we use to gauge how much water is left. Embarrassing, yes, but what a relief to know we were going to live! Everything was going to be fine, but the ordeal had taught me a lesson. It had reminded me that the English language is full of words that are pure nonsense. These words define concepts that do not exist. There is no word for rights in the Lord’s language. There is no Hebrew word that translates to even roughly the same thing. And you can be sure that, if a word doesn’t exist in the Lord’s language, that thing does not exist at all. It is not real. Otherwise, God would have named it.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“The mighty Toyota Company was born from the ashes of a failed weaving business. And perhaps you have heard of Wrigley’s gum? William Wrigley started off his company trying to sell baking soda and soap, but he never turned a profit, and so he turned to making and selling chewing gum instead. These men share one thing in common—they were open to change and they listened to their intuition. Sometimes we hear a whisper in the air that guides us positively. This whisper we hear, it is not passive—it is a response to our own enthusiasm, passion, and commitment. We put in the effort and we get back a divine message. Call it inspiration if you want. Call it an entrepreneurial muse. But it feels and sounds like a whisper in your soul. If you hear it, listen to it. You must be willing to change course when it tells you to.”
― Daniel Lapin, Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

“for the most part people prosper when they behave decently and honorably toward one another and live among others who conduct themselves similarly.”
― Daniel Lapin, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

“Step one in the process of increasing your income is to begin wrapping yourself around these two related notions: (1) you are in business, and (2) the occupation of business is moral, noble, and worthy.”
― Daniel Lapin, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

“Similarly, in whatever enterprise you find yourself, practice predictability. Never impose your mood swings on your associates and customers.”
― Daniel Lapin, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money