Author Chris Brady's Leadership Blog

4 Thoughts

Great coaches are necessary to help you think through whether you should think what you think you should think.

There are seasons to success just as there are in LIFE.  When it's harvest time, you'd better find yourself outstanding in your field.

Win more when you win and lose less when you lose.

Moving forward means leaving behind.

Multum, Non Multa

 C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus  (61 - 114 A.D.), also known as Pliny the Younger, said "Multum, Non Multa."

Translated, it says, "Much, not many."

I am not sure what he meant by it or why he said it, after all, I'm no philologist. And, being as he's been dead a long time, I feel quite free in the following interpretation:

Quality, not quantity.

Think about how many applications this has to our modern, busy, frenzied, materialistic lives.

As applied to friendships.

As applied to possessions.

As applied to accomplishments.

We trade so much of ourselves for more, more, more, when instead we should likely be demanding better, better, better. 

One of my favorite sayings comes from the movie Hitch: "Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away." Those moments are available to us all. They exist in the gaps between the things we have scheduled, planned, organized, and orchestrated. They occur in and around all the other events we trick ourselves into thinking are important. Suddenly one of those little moments will occur; a hug, a cute question from a child, a warm compliment from a friend, an act of kindness from a stranger, a look of honesty from an acquaintance, and like hearing an old song, we remember.  

Let us not be so consumed with getting through that we let it all pass by.

Let us not be in such a hurry to get there that we don't experience what's here.

Let us not be so obsessed with making a living that we miss out on making a life.

Much, not many.

   

Freedom Only to the Degree of Self Mastery

Are you ready for something insightful and remarkably profound?   

Ever wonder why many people appear so happy to be enslaved, to one degree or another?

Ever wonder why some folks seem to search out mundane jobs and then enjoy complaining about what a dead end they are?

Author Steven Pressfield, the creative genius behind the book (and later movie) entitled, The Legend of Baggar Vance, as well as the beautifully written historical fiction book entitled The Gates of Fire (about the famed battle of Thermopylae), among others, offers one of the keenest insights into human nature I've ever encountered. Here, in just a short paragraph, Pressfield seems to have pointed his eloquence toward the source of the lack of truly creative, free expression in human society:

"It may be that the human race is not ready for freedom. The air of liberty may be too rarified for us to breathe. Certainly I wouldn't be writing this book, on this subject, if living with freedom were easy. The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them." *

Umm hmm. Poignant stuff.

I suggest we all read that again.

And again. 

* The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, Steven Pressfield

Quips

Middle age is the time of life when work begins to be a lot less fun and fun begins to be a lot more work.

The good old days are those days that I could master.  The pace was slower and I was faster.

Living in the past has its advantages - it's cheaper!

It used to be that if you were "sound as a dollar" you were considered in perfect health - today, it means you are in bad shape.

(Source: The Complete Book of Zingers by Croft M. Pentz)

Quotes

People like to feel significant, especially if this does not involve much of an effort on their part.

Only you can be yourself. No one else is qualified for the job, and you barely are yourself.

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

Experts agree that sixty-seven percent of statistics are made up on the spot.

Facts

A sure way to stop a red-hot argument is to lay a few cold, hard facts on it.

"Get your facts first; then you can distort 'em as you please." -- Mark Twain

The hardest thing about facts is facing them.

Digging for facts is a better mental exercise than jumping to conclusions.

"Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions." -- Proverbs 18:2

Self-Deception

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit because what each man wishes, he also believes to be true."  - Demosthenes, Third Olynthiac

"The fly sat upon the axel-tree of the chariot wheel and said, "What a dust do I raise!"  - Aesop, Fables

"If any man thinks that he alone is wise - that in speech or in mind he has no peer - such a soul, when laid open, is always found empty."  - Sophocles, Antigone

"A time will soon come when the tragic actors will think that their masks and buskins and the long robes are . . . themselves."  - Epictetus, Discourses

Leadership Quotes

"Early in life, I decided that I would not be overcome by events.  My philosophy has been that regardless of the circumstances, I shall not be vanquished, but will try to be happy.  Life is not easy for any of us.  But it is a continual challenge, and it is up to us to be cheerful - and to be strong, so that those who depend on us may draw strength from our example."  - Rose Kennedy

"Leaders who win the respect ofothers are the ones who deliver more than they promise, not the ones who promise more than they can deliver."  - Mark A. Clement

Napoleon was asked after his stunning victory in Italy how he made his army cross the Alps.  He replied, "One does not make a French army cross the Alps; one leads it across."

"A good leader takes a little more than his share of blame, a little less than his share of credit."  - Arnold Glasow

"In calm water every ship has a good captain."  - Swedish proverb

Perseverance

"The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, "This far and no farther."  - Ludwig van Beethoven

"When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead on it and make trial after trial until it comes"  - Thomas Edison

"March on.  Do not tarry.  To go forward is to move toward perfection.  March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path."  - Kahlil Gibran

"Don't let the bastards grind you down."  Joseph W. Stilwell

"A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away."  - Gene Roddenberry

"There are days when it takes all you've got just to keep up with the losers."  - Robert Orben

"Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success.  They quit on the one-yard line.  They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown."  H. Ross Perot

Ideas

Ideas shape the course of history  - John Maynard Keynes

All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time  - George Seldes

There is only one way in which a person acquires a new idea: by the combination or association of two or more ideas he already has into a new juxtaposition in such a manner as to discover a relationship among them of which he was not previously aware  - Francis A. Cartier

An idea is a feat of association  - Robert Frost

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is an idea whose time has come  - Victor Hugo

It's just as sure a recipe for failure to have the right idea fifty years too soon as five years too late  - J. R. Platt

It is  impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available  - Thomas Mann