People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, either way, you’re absolutely correct.

Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward: Everything really is possible in America.

What happens when people try to “dodge” a question they would rather not answer by answering a different question?

…Listeners viewed successful question-dodgers as positively as speakers who actually answered the question they are asked…. More troublingly, listeners preferred speakers who answered the wrong question well over those who answered the right question poorly.

Many companies think a horse race is all they need to pick a winner, without worrying about whether the horses are fast enough for the years ahead. These are companies that pride themselves on being obsessive about managing for performance, on paying and promoting those who deliver, while firing those who don’t. But often they turn out to be companies that think developing general managers is a waste of time, human relations an administrative task to be delegated and then ignored, and succession what you worry about the year before the CEO retires.

The great danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.

In an era where information about seemingly anything is only a mouse click away, just possessing information alone is hardly the differentiator it used to be. What is more important today than ever before is the ability to synthesize the facts and give them context and perspective…What we want from people who stand before us and give a talk is to give us that which data and information alone cannot: meaning.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

People need to learn how to manage failure so it’s informational and not demoralizing.

“We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.

We know that it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That’s what the data shows. The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won’t make them as happy — money.”