Other Books Archives - Page 8 of 15 - Ben Rosenfeld

May 29, 2014May 28, 2014

“The Hard Thing About Hard Things” Quotes

I recently read “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers” by Ben Horowitz. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the full book here.

“Colin Powell says that leadership is the ability to get someone to follow you even if only out of curiosity.” (5)

“The simple existence of an alternate, plausible scenario is often all that’s needed to keep hope alive among a worried workforce.” (5)

“Most business relationships either become too tense to tolerate or not tense enough to be productive after a while. Either people challenge each other to the point where they don’t like each other or they become complacent about each other’s feedback and no longer benefit from the relationship. With Marc and me, even after eighteen years, he upsets me almost every day by finding something wrong in my thinking, and I do the same for him. It works.” (14)

“During the road show, as a way to break tension, Marc would say, ‘Remember, Ben, things are always darkest before they go completely black.’” (28)

“If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble.” (29)

“As painful as it might be, I knew that we had to get into the broader market in order to understand it well enough to build the right product. paradoxically, the only way to do that was to ship and try to sell the wrong product. We would fall on our faces, but we would learn fast and do what was needed to survive.” (41)

“Markets weren’t ‘efficient’ at finding the truth; they were just very efficient at converging on a conclusion – often the wrong conclusion.” (52)

“Startup CEOs should not play the odds. WHen you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.” (59)

“People always ask me, ‘What’s the secret to being a successful CEO?’ Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it’s the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves. It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.” (59)

“Nobody cares. And they are right to not care. A great reason for failing won’t preserve one dollar for your investors, won’t save one employee’s job, or get you one new customer. It especially won’t make you feel one bit better when you shut down your company and declare bankruptcy.” (92)

“All the mental energy you use to elaborate your misery would be far better used trying to find the one seemingly impossible way out of your current mess. Spend zero time on what you could have done, and devote all of your time on what you might do. Because in the end, nobody cares; just run your company.” (92)

“Being a good company doesn’t matter when things go well, but it can be the difference between life and death when things go wrong. Things always go wrong. Being a good company is an end in itself.” (102)

“The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that’s at least ten times better at doing something than the current prevailing way of doing that thing. Two or three times better will not be good enough to get people to switch to the new thing fast enough or in large enough volume to matter.” (179)

“The first rule of organizational design is that all organizational designs are bad.” (188)

“You want to optimize the organization for the people – for the people doing the work – not for the managers. Most large mistakes in organizational design come from putting the individual ambitions of the people at the top of the organization ahead of the communication paths for the people at the bottom of the organization.” (190)

“Hiring scalable execs too early is a bad mistake. There is no such thing as a great executive. There is only a great executive for a specific company at a specific point in time.” (194)

“Perhaps the most important thing that I learned as an entrepreneur was to focus on what I needed to get right and stop worrying about all the things that I did wrong or might do wrong.” (200)

“Focus on the road, not the wall.” (207)

“Over the last ten years, technological advances have dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.” (213)

“The enemy of competence is sometimes confidence.” (223)

“To be a good CEO, in order to be liked in the long run, you must do many things that will upset people in the short run.” (230)

Liked the quotes? Click here to buy the book.

May 28, 2014

“The Fighter’s Mind” Quotes

I recently read “The Fighter’s Mind: Inside The Mental Game” by Sam Sheridan. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Rediscoveries are common among philosophers; the human mind moves in a circle around its eternal problems.” -A.J. Liebling (vii)

“The more you look around, the more you see that everyone is fighting something.” (vii)

“It’s a battle of will, and nothing destroys will like fatigue.” (6)

“There’s always another level. People may not understand it, may not be able to grasp it, but there’s always another level.” (13)

“Dan Gable says, ‘Breaking somebody is the gaol. You get him to quit trying to win, he tries to survive.’” (19)

“Mark DellaGrotte says, ‘At the end of a hard training session, I have them all walk around with their hand up, because they’re all winners and they’re all MY winners.’” (48)

“Take your enemy from where he wants to be, make him fight your fight.” (53)

“Liborio says, ‘Accept you can lose, you can not perform. Take this big bag of rocks out of your backpack, take the pressure off, and you’ll do better. Once you understand that, man, you can do well.’” (70)

“Especially in a bad position you have to become a perpetual motion machine.” (72)

“Marcelo says, ‘Maybe I am not better than my opponent, but I know for sure I love my training more.’” (75)

“I asked Nino, ‘How did you get good at submissions from all these different positions?’ He said he looked at all the bad positions, all the spots where he wasn’t strong, and tried to figure out a submission from there. He doesn’t fight to get into the right position – he learns and practices submissions from positions he’s uncomfortable in.” (75)

“Nino Schembri says, ‘I take what they give me and make a strong position out of a weak one.’” (75)

“The great ones are fanatical students, analyzing positions and all the tiny adjustments that make a position or a sweep work. The difference between a regular student of jiu-jitsu and the great players is the dedication to studying the game.” (75)

“I start to think that maybe it’s the other way around, that you can’t be great without humility. The most humble guys, who are the most open and willing to learn, are the ones who become the best.” (81)

“The defining moment for a fighter isn’t victory, but the way he deals with defeat.” (92)

“There’s no easy way. You gotta take a lot of beatings.” (101)

“Pat said, “It’s the guys who go to the breaking point again and again and don’t give up. It’s up to you. SUre, some guys are in it to be a fighter, or to be part of a team, or get girls and be on TV. But there are guys who honestly know that if they don’t give up they’re going to be world champion. THe real guys know if they keep at it they can win a title. I would always mentally convince myself there’s no other option.” (102)

“Nothing can replace natural self-discipline; nothing can replace time in the gym. Andre loved boxing, and you have to love it to be great. To compete at the highest level requires eight or ten years of groundwork, going to the gym and working to get better every day, day in and day out, with no end in sight. You have to love the journey.” (112)

“Randy says, ‘When I’m done learning I’m done winning.’” (137)

“I tell that to friends or people I meet who want to be writers or artists, anybody who wants to do something different, a job without security. Don’t let it be anxiety; let that uncertainty generate excitement.” (138)

“Kenny Florian says, ‘My goal is to beat the hell out of the last Kenny Florian I fought.’” (158)

“It comes around to an important facet of fighting: acknowledging your identity and working to make it the best version of you.” (158)

“Kenny says, ‘You need to have a brutal honesty with yourself. Did I do everything possible to win that fight? What didn’t I do? And analyze honestly, without bias, from a technical standpoint. And then ask yourself, ‘Did I do everything in my training to prepare?’’” (161)

“Frank said, ‘Imagine if you did that to every person you came in contact with? You put yourself underneath them to learn? I always stay a student.’” (177)

“Sometimes the best way to beat a guy is to go into his strengths, not his weakness, to go where he doesn’t expect you, where he feels so confident he’s vulnerable.” (194)

“Josh wrote in The Art of Learning: ‘In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, cool under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre.’” (194)

“You have to get down and dirty and battle with yourself. I am just like everyone else. My work can be great but I’m nothing special. If you don’t win that one, you’re finished as an artist, a student, a fighter.” (197)

“Greg says, ‘You do brutal workouts to get used to suffering so that suffering doesn’t become a huge defining deal.’” (207)

“There’s always a point at which people will break. That’s why you trian mental toughness. Everyone will break – there’s not a man alive that can’t be broke. Your job, with all that mental training, that suffering, is just to push your own line of mental breaking so far back your opponent can’t find it. Then you take your opponent and get him to cross his line.” (210)

“Greg says, ‘If they lose, I get broken up and emotional, but I recover and go back to the process. The fight is only fifteen minutes, the process is months, years. If it was just about the fight I’d have a miserable life.’” (221)

“John says, ‘Anger can take you away from your goal. You can get caught up in a desire for revenge, which distracts you. Experienced fighters will create this in opponents.’ To John, what sets the top guys apart is the idea of ‘relaxed poise.’ He says, ‘The single definitive feature of the uberathlete is a sense of effortlessness in a world where most men grutn and strive and scream. It comes easy to the best, and what creates that? I think it’s a sense of play. No fear or anxiety about their performance. Like when the first time you ever drove a car, you came out seating and exhausted. Now when you drive a car it’s effortless and smooth. Fear and anger are motor inhibitors.” (237)

“Renzo said, ‘Now, everything is much clearer, you don’t waste time or strength, you just go straight to the point.’” (238)

“Renzo says, ‘The guy outweighed me by thirty kilos, and I thought, I’m gonna be here all night. If I can’t finish him, we’ll be here tomorrow morning. Because I don’t give a fuck, I’m not giving up. I’m going ot see how he’s gonna make me quit. It’s impossible.’” (239)

“Peter said, ‘Some artist said that when you start to work, every artist you ever cared about is in the studio with you. One by one, they leave. Finally, you leave, too. Then the work happens.’” (246)

“Concentration comes with the hidden cost of diminished creativity.”

“It’s a misunderstanding of Musashi, that if you adopt that proper philosophy and ‘be like water’ or ‘fear nothing,’ you don’t need to practice ten hours a day for fifteen years.” (256)

“There are no shortcuts but a lifetime of study. There are no easy ways but obsession.” (257)

“Once you’ve devoted a lifetime to study then the important thing is to get out of your own way and not screw yourself up by thinking.” (259)

“You have to be simple, uncomplicated, pure, just to have a shot at falling into that zone state. And of course you need your ten thousand hours, too. Jordan and Kobe worked harder in the gym than everyone else.” (267)

“We choose things that are against our own best interests because the freedom to make that choice is more important than those interests.” (279)

“Carlo laughed and continued, ‘It helps explain why there is no money, because you get paid in satisfaction.’” (281)

“My first serious art teacher used to say, in his said voice, ‘We draw because we want to be loved.’” (283)

“Fighting is a way for the unwise, the damaged, and the angry men and women to find wisdom. It makes you a better person.” (283)

Liked the quotes? Click here to buy the book.

May 10, 2014

“The Obstacle Is The Way” Quotes

I recently read “The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph” by Ryan Holiday. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Through our perception of events, we are complicit in the creation – as well as the destruction – of every one of our obstacles.” (22)

“Real strength lies in the control or, as Nasim Taleb put it, the domestication of one’s emotions, not in pretending they don’t exist.” (30)

“Epictetus told his students, when they’d quote some great thinker, to picture themselves observing the person having sex. It’s funny, you should try it the next time someone intimidates you or makes you feel insecure.” (34)

“Take your situation and pretend it is not happening to you. Pretend it is not important, that it doesn’t matter. How much easier would it be for you to know what to do? How much more quickly and dispassionately could you size up the scenario and its options?” (35)

“When you can break apart something, or look at it form some new angle, it loses its power over you.” (36)

“One meeting is nothing in a lifetime of meetings, one deal is just one deal. In fact, we may have actually dodged a bullet. The next opportunity might be better.” (38)

“Everything changed for George Clooney when he tried a new perspective. He realized that casting is an obstacle for producers, too – they need to find somebody, and they’re all hoping that the next person to walk in the room is the right somebody. Auditions were a chance to solve their problem, not his.

From Clooney’s new perspective, he was that solution. He wasn’t going to be someone groveling for a shot. He was someone with something special to offer. He was the answer to their prayers, not the other way around. That was what he began projecting in his auditions – not exclusively his acting skills but that he was the man for the job. That he understood what the casting director and producers were looking for in a specific role and that he would deliver it in each and every situation, in preproduction, on camera, and during promotion.” (39)

“Most people start from disadvantage (often with no idea they are doing so) and do just fine. It’s not unfair, it’s universal. Those who survive it, survive because they took things day by day – that’s the real secret.” (46)

“One thing is certain. It’s not simply a matter of saying: Oh, I’ll live in the present. You have to work at it. Catch your mind when it wanders – don’t let it get away from you. Discard distracting thoughts.” (48)

“Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life. Focus on what is in front of you, right now. Ignore what it “represents” or it “means” or “why it happened to you.”” (48)

“Steve Jobs refused to tolerate people who didn’t believe in their own abilities to succeed.” (51)

“Take that longtime rival at work, the one who causes endless headaches? Note the fact that they also:

– keep you alert

– raise the stakes

– motivate you to prove them wrong

– harden you

– help you to appreciate true friends

– provide an instructive antilog – an example of whom you don’t want to become” (56)

“The struggle against an obstacle inevitably propels the fighter to a new level of functioning. The extent of the struggle determines the extent of the growth. The obstacle is an advantage, not adversity. The enemy is any perception that prevents us from seeing this.” (57)

“It’s a huge step forward to realize that the worst thing to happen is never the event, but the event and losing your head. Because then you’ll have two problems.” (60)

“Boldness is acting anyway, even though you understand the negative and the reality of your obstacle.” (60)

“Sure, Demosthenes lost the inheritance he’d been born with, and that was unfortunate. But in the process of dealing with this reality, he created a far better one – one that could never be taken from him.” (67)

“In persistence, he’d not only broken through: In trying it all the wrong ways, Grant discovered a totally new way – the way that would eventually win the war.” (77)

“Knowing that eventually – inevitably – one will work. Welcoming the opportunity to test and test and test, grateful for the priceless knowledge this reveals.” (78)

“We’re usually skilled and knowledgeable and capable enough. But do we have the patience to refine our idea? The energy to beat on enough doors until we find investors or supporters? The persistence to slog through the politics and drama of working with a group?” (79)

“Epictetus: “persist and resist.” Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.” (80)

“Failure shows us the way – by showing us what isn’t the way.” (86)

“Don’t think about the end – think about surviving.” (88)

“But you, you’re so busy thinking about the future, you don’t take any pride in the tasks you’re given right now.” (94)

“Forget the rule book, settle the issue.” (99)

“I you’ve got an important mission, all that matters is that you accomplish it.” (100)

“Think progress, not perfection.” (102)

“In a study of some 30 conflicts comprising more than 280 campaigns from ancient to modern history, the brilliant strategist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart came to a stunning conclusion: In only 6 of the 280 campaigns was the decisive victory a result of a direct attack on the enemy’s main army.” (104)

“When you’re at your wit’s end, straining and straining with all your might, when people tell you you look like you might pop a vein… Take a step back, then go around the problem. Find some leverage. Approach from what is called the “line of least expectation.” (105)

“We wrongly assume that moving forward is the only way to progress, the only way we can win. Sometimes, staying put, going sideways, or moving backward is actually the best way to eliminate what blocks or impedes your path.” (112)

“We act out, instead of act.” (116)

“If you think it’s simply enough to take advantage of the opportunities that rise in your life, you will fall short of greatness. Anyone sentient can do that. What you must do is learn how to press forward precisely when everyone around you sees disaster.” (119)

“Ordinary people shy away form negative situations, just as they do with failure. They do their best to avoid trouble. What great people do is the opposite. They are their best in these situations. They turn personal tragedy or misfortune – really anything, everything – to their advantage.” (120)

“It’s much easier to control our perceptions and emotions than it is to give up our desire to control other people and events.” (132)

“Could you actually handle yourself if things suddenly got worse?” (135)

“About the worst thing that can happen is not something going wrong, but something going wrong and catching you by surprise.” (143)

“It doesn’t feel that way but constraints in life are a good thing. Especially if we can accept them and let them direct us. They push us to places and to develop skills that we’d otherwise never have pursued.” (145)

“If someone we knew took traffic signals personally, we would judge them insane. Yet this is exactly what life is doing to us. It tells us to come to a stop here. Or that some intersection is blocked or that a particular road has been rerouted through an inconvenient detour. We can’t argue or yell this problem away. We simply accept it.” (145)

“Love everything that happens: amor fati.” (150)

“To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We’ve got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens.” (151)

“The Germans have a word for it: Sitzfleisch. Staying power. Winning by sticking your ass to the seat and not leaving until after it’s over.” (157)

“There are more failures in the world due to a collapse of will than there will ever be from objectively conclusive external events.” (158)

“Whatever you’re going through, whatever is holding you down or standing in your way, can be turned into a source of strength – by thinking of people other than yourself.” (165)

“Stop pretending that what you’re going through is somehow special or unfair. Whatever trouble you’re having – no matter how difficult – is not some unique misfortune picked out especially for you. It just is what it is.” (165)

“One does not overcome an obstacle to enter the land of no obstacles.” (172)

“On the contrary, the more you accomplish, the more things will stand in your way. There are always more obstacles, bigger challenges. You’re always fighting uphill. Get used to it and train accordingly.” (173)

“Passing one obstacle simply says you’re worthy of more.” (173)

Liked the quotes? Buy the book here.

April 14, 2014

“Titan” Quotes

I recently read “Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.” by Ron Chernow. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Rockefeller came across as a gifted automaton at best, a malevolent machine at worst.” (xiv)

“Rockefeller drew strength by simplifying reality and strongly believed that excessive reflection upon unpleasant but unalterable events only weakened one’s resolve in the face of enemies.” (29)

“Mark Twain singled out the California gold rush as the watershed event that sanctified a new money worship and ebased the country’s founding ideals.” (33)

“As part of Rockefeller’s silent craft and habit of extended premeditation, he never tipped off his adversaries to his plans for revenge, preferring to spring his reprisals on them.” (84)

“This parting was vintage Rockefeller: He slowly and secretly laid the groundwork, then moved with electrifying speed to throw his adversaries off balance.” (86)

“Even as a young man, Rockefeller was extremely composed in a crisis. In this respect, he was a natural leader: The more agitated others became, the calmer he grew.” (87)

“Having emerged as his own boss, he would never again feel his advancement blocked by shortsighted, mediocre men.” (88)

“As a self-made man in a new industry, Rockefeller wasn’t stultified by precedent or tradition, which made it easier for him to innovate.” (100)

“As Rockefeller said, “I trained myself in the school of self-control and self-denial. It was hard on me, but I would rather be my own tyrant than have someone else tyrannize me.”” (109)

“One of Rockefeller’s strengths in bargaining situations was that he figured out what he wanted and what the other party wanted and then crafted mutually advantageous terms. Instead of ruining the railroads, Rockefeller tried to help them prosper, albeit in a way that fortified his own position.” (137)

“Rockefeller said, “You can abuse me, you can strike me, so long as you let me have my own way.”” (140)

“Another businessman might have started with small, vulnerable firms, building on easy victories, but Rockefeller started at the top, believing that if he could crack his strongest competitor first, it would have a tremendous psychological impact.” (143)

“Early on, Rockefeller realized that in the capital-intensive refining business, sheer size mattered greatly because it translated into economies of scale.” (150)

“Rockefeller said, “Often the best way to develop workers – when you are sure they have character and think they have ability – is to take them to a deep place, throw them in and make them sink or swim.”” (178)

“In dueling with Scott, Rockefeller didn’t try to demolish him – as Scott might have done to him – but called a truce to strengthen their alliance. His constant aim was to be conciliatory whenever possible and extend his range of influence.” (203)

“Rockefeller was quick to delegate authority and presided lightly, genially, over his empire, exerting his will in unseen ways.” (223)

“He liked to canvass everyone’s opinion before expressing his own and then often crafted a compromise to maintain cohesion. He was always careful to couch his decision as suggestions or questions.” (224)

“As the organization grew, he continued to operate by consensus, taking no major initiative opposed by board members. Because all ideas had to meet the supreme test of unanimous approval among strong-minded men, Standard Oil made few major missteps.” (224)

“A top-down hierarchical structure might have hampered local owners whom Rockefeller had promised a measure of autonomy in running their plants. The committee system galvanized their energies while providing them with general guidance. The committees encouraged rivalry among local units by circulating performance figures and encouraging them to compete for records and prizes. The point is vitally important, for monopolies, spared the rod of competition, can easily lapse into sluggish giants.” (229)

“He believed there was a time to think and then a time to act. He brooded over problems and quietly matured plans over extended periods. Once he had made up his mind, however, he was no longer troubled by doubts and pursued his vision with undeviating faith. Unfortunately, once in that state of mind, he was all but deaf to criticism. He was like a projectile that, once launched, could never be stopped, never recalled, never diverted.” (230)

“In a delicate balancing act, Rockefeller gave enough to get projects under way, yet not so much as to obviate future fund-raising.” (241)

“He preferred to remain slightly detached and subtly enigmatic, never telegraphing his plans too far in advance.” (241)

“To cool off a tense situation with a bland note was vintage Rockefeller, and there is no evidence that he ever again communicated with Warden on the subject.” (269)

“Standard Oil had taught the American public an important but paradoxical lesson: Free markets, if left completely to their own devices, can wind up terribly unfree.” (297)

“In religion and education no less than in business, Rockefeller thought it a mistake to prop up weak entities that might otherwise perish in the evolutionary race.” (309)

“Rockefeller said, “Instead of giving alms to beggars, if anything can be done to remove the causes which lead to the existence of beggars, then something deeper and broader and more worthwhile will have been accomplished.” (314)

“As the country grew more polarized, many people wondered whether America had paid too dear a price for the industrialization that had so quickly propelled it from an agrarian society to a world economic power.” (334)

“Lloyd’s political message: ‘Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty.’” (341)

Gates candidly stated, “There is no essential difference between religion and morality except that the one is more intense and passionate than the other.” (499)

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February 22, 2014

“The Everything Store” Quotes

I recently read “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos And The Age of Amazon” by Brad Stone. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Computer scientist Alan Kay observed that “point of view is worth 80 IQ points.” (20)

“Gelfond says, ‘It’s one thing to have a good idea, but it’s another to have confidence in a person to execute it.’” (42)

“Miller says, ‘Toys are so fad driven, it’s a little like betting on Oscar winners only by looking at movie trailers.’” (85)

“‘There’s only one way out of this predicament,’ Bezos said repeatedly to employees during this time, ‘and that is to invent our way out.’” (196)

“Bezos believed that high margins justified rivals’ investments in research and development and attracted more competition, while low margins attracted customers and were more defensible.” (221)

“‘It’s far better to cannibalize yourself than have someone else do it,’ said Diego Piacentini.” (231)

“Christensen wrote that great companies fail not because they want to avoid disruptive change but because they are reluctant to embrace promising new markets that might undermine their traditional businesses and that do not appear to satisfy their short-term growth requirements.” (234)

“Some of the retailers who sell via the Amazon Marketplace seem to have a schizophrenic relationship with the company, particularly if they have no unique and sustainable selling point, such as an exclusive on a particular product. Amazon closely monitors what they sell, notices any briskly selling items, and often starts selling those products itself. By paying Amazon commissions and helping it source hot products, retailers on the Amazon Marketplace are in effect aiding their most ferocious competitor.” (303)

“‘In a world where consumers had limited choice, you needed to compete for locations,’ says Ross. ‘But in a world where consumers have unlimited choice, you need to compete for attention. And this requires something more than selling other people’s products.’” (304)

“‘We don’t have a single big advantage,’ Bezos once told an old adversary, publisher Tim O’Reilly, back when they were arguing over Amazon protecting its patented 1-Click ordering method from rivals like Barnes & Noble. ‘So we have to weave a rope of many small advantages.’” (341)

Liked the book? Buy it here.