Archive

Here’s a list of people that have been featured on this site so far. Subscribe to get each day’s new person sent to you by email.

Seth Godin: “If you say failure is not an option, neither is success.”

Austin Kleon: “You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences.”

Ben Chestnut: “Fearlessness begets happiness, which begets creativity, which begets innovation, which begets profits.”

Bob Lefsetz: “You think you want to become famous. But what you’re truly looking for is to become known.”

Tina Roth Eisenberg: “We should always be willing to sprinkle a little nonsense into the work we do.”

Jason Hirschhorn: “Failure is just a way of learning something new.”

Yung Jake: “I’m just more interested in interacting with the virtual world than I am with real people.”

Aaron Draplin: “The most inspiring, interesting designers are charismatic people. They know how to talk. How to communicate. How to soothe. How to sell bullshit.”

Casey Gerald: “There’s no line item on a balance sheet for ‘give a damn,’ but it’s the most valuable thing you’ve got in the business.”

Ian Rogers: “Our kids are going to watch exactly what they want to – not what’s marketed to them.”

Wendy MacNaughton: “When you look at someone through an empathic lens, there’s a huge story there. It’s never just what you see on the surface.”

Nir Eyal: “The Internet is a giant machine designed to give people what they want.”

Baratunde Thurston: “Remember something about attention. Yes, it’s possible to buy, grab, or even steal it. But it’s far better to earn it.”

Jeremiah Owyang: “When you open your email you pay someone else, because it’s usually people reaching out to ask you for something. Taking the time to read blogs, synthesize and add value, that builds your community. That’s paying yourself first.”

Warren Ellis: “To improve reality is to clearly see where you are, and then wonder how to make that better.”

Sharon Ann Lee: “I’m not afraid of losing it all. I’m more afraid of spending my life away on meaningless shit.”

Dave Pell: “It’s always the personal stuff people remark on. We’re all dying for human connection on the web.”

Brene Brown: “Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous.”

Derek Sivers: “The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.”

Joel Gascoigne: “I don’t know anyone who consistently wakes up before 6 am and isn’t doing something interesting with their life.”

Mike Monteiro: “People who suck at what they do, seldom think they suck.”

Shane Snow: “Those who tell the stories don’t just rule the world, but they can change it.”

Laura Olin: “When you feel like the thing you’ve just done is the best and most meaningful thing you’ll ever do, it’s hard to figure out what to do next.”

Simon Sinek: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. What you do simply proves what you believe.”

Srini Rao: “There’s a difference between what you plan to do with your life and how you plan to earn a living.”

Casey Neistat: “I don’t care what other people think. Original artists don’t care.”

Tim Rodgers: “We all have ideas in the back of our notebook and chances are they sit there until one day you go to the Internet and boom – there it is. Your idea made by somebody else.”

Maria Popova: “Literature is the original Internet.”

Adam Braun: “Your life should be a story you’re excited to tell.”

Buster Benson: “The flaws are what make the thing valuable.”

Ze Frank: “If you want to be something, start being it. Not tomorrow, today.”

Julien Smith: “The most important thing when you look at technology and trends isn’t to look at what could happen, but to look at what MUST happen.”

Alexis Ohanian: “Facebook makes me hate the people I know and Reddit makes me love the people I don’t.”

Jullien Gordon: “Your life is your vehicle to design, drive, and maintain.”

Sir Ken Robinson: “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Vala Afshar: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.”

James Altucher: “Never do anything you don’t want to do. Even if it seems selfish at first, life is too short.”

Jason Calacanis: “You have to have a big vision and take very small steps to get there.”

Ann Handley: “If you aren’t working hard, you probably don’t care a whole lot about what you’re working on.”

Hugh MacLeod: “The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.”

David Hieatt: “The best companies in the world make you feel something. And they make you feel something because they want to change something.”

Wil Reynolds: “The day you call yourself an expert in something, you begin the long slide of NOT being an expert at that thing.”

Steven Johnson: “When you don’t have to ask for permission, innovation thrives.”

Gretchen Rubin: “I can do anything I want, but I can’t do everything I want.”

Kirby Ferguson: “Create work that answers questions you’re genuinely interested in.”

Mitch Joel: “It’s not going to happen if you wait for the boss to tell you to make it happen.”

David Kelley: “Bright lights cast dark shadows when shone from only one direction.”

John Taylor Gatto: “In 26 years of teaching rich kids and poor, I almost never met a ‘learning disabled’ child; hardly every met a ‘gifted and talented’ one, either.”

Jeff Goins: “You can’t find the perfect job, but you can create it.”

Amy Cuddy: “Don’t fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it.”

Sarah Lewis: “Masters are not experts because they take a subject to its conceptual end. They are masters because they realize that there isn’t one.”

Biz Stone: “Once true passion hits you, you can recognize all the times in your life when you were chasing the wrong dream.”

Scott Belsky: “Most ideas are born and lost in isolation.”

Jeff Jarvis: “The only sane response to change is to find the opportunity in it.”

Guy Kawasaki: “If you’re not pissing someone off on social media, you’re not using it aggressively enough.”

Jonah Peretti: “Life is tricky because it happens once and there’s no opportunity for A/B testing.”

Jose Luis Vilson: “There’s a special sort of courage it takes to tell 90 middle schoolers that you’re in charge of their brains for the next 10 months.”

Stef Lewandowski: “The best thing to do if you’re starting a startup is to go with a little, big idea.”

Courtney Carver: “Living with less is the new definition of success.”

Deanna Zandt: “That voice that tells you you’re selfish — I want you to ignore it.”

Tony Hsieh: “Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins.”

Caterina Fake: “Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.”

Chris Guillebeau: “You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”

Jane McGonigal: “Reality is broken. Game designers can fix it.”

Leo Babauta: “The questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.”

Sloane Davidson: “Giving back does not – and in most cases should not – be a completely altruistic activity.”

James Victore: “I try to put my opinion into the work because my opinion matters. Your opinion matters.”

Ximena Vengoechea: “Limited options provide clarity. And when you get stuck, sometimes the answer is not more; but it’s less.”

Jonah Berger: “Virality isn’t born, it’s made.”

Whitney Johnson: “Disrupting yourself is critical to avoiding stagnation.”

Gary Vaynerchuk: “In hindsight, the fact that I was considered a failure for the first 18 years of my life has become the foundation of my success.”

Jessica Hische: “If you want to make cool things, you have to learn the tools it takes to make them.”

Brian Wansink: “The best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on.”

Bel Pesce: “Nobody will be better at being you than you.”

Martin Lindstrom: “When we brand things, our brains perceive them as more special and valuable than they actually are.”

Jocelyn K. Glei: “All of the most fulfilled people I know focus more on the quality of their connections than the quantity of them.”

Jason Zook: “Follow your effort, not your passion.”

Sam Horn: “Mutual intrigue is the key to turning frustrating, waste-of-time, one-way communications into productive, rewarding two-way connections.”

Brian Solis: “Information overload is a symptom of our desire to not focus on what’s important. It is a choice.”

Diana Kimball: “I’m inspired by people and systems who make time and space for playful creativity.”

Paul Jarvis: “If we don’t let our weirdness rise to the surface, we don’t let our work stand out.”

Elan Morgan: “Love is often quieter than hate, but it is sewn into a thousand moments every day.”

Brandon Mendelson: “You could have the best idea in the world, but if people don’t like you, don’t trust you, or don’t know you, they’re not going to consider it.”

Amanda Palmer: “Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with—rather than in competition with—the world.”

Adam Alter: “Each of us is an ongoing product of the world within us, the world between us, and the world around us—and their hidden capacity to shape our every thought, feeling, and behavior.”

Amy Wilkinson: “Creators don’t get stuck looking back. They take lessons forward and avoid the trap of regret.”

Ben Huh: “Human nature has a tendency to admire complexity, but reward simplicity.”

Jodi Sagorin Spangler: “In this extraordinary world, there’s no excuse to be bored.”

Noah Kagan: “To be in the 1% you have to do what the 99% won’t.”

Laura Vanderkam: “You don’t become a better parent or employee by not enjoying your life.”

Jonathan Fields: “When you run from uncertainty, you end up running from life.”

Dorie Clark: “For any meaningful business transaction, trust—built up over time—is the essential ingredient.”

Rohan Gunatillake: “Distraction isn’t intrinsic to technology. It’s just that technologies have not been designed with the mind, in mind.”

Maria Konnikova: “Attention is a limited resource.”

Ryan Hoover: “When you look back at yourself six months from today and don’t feel embarrassed by your naiveté, there’s a problem. That means you’re not learning, growing.”

Susan Cain: “Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.”

Daniel Coyle: “To get good, it’s helpful to be willing, or even enthusiastic, about being bad.”

Amy Webb: “The easiest and most reliable pathway is simple: stay aggressively curious.”

Ryan Holiday: “There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.”

Christie Aschwanden: “When it comes to community, you get what you give.”

Joshua Foer: “Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.”

Winnie Kao: “Life is short, so you should trim the lukewarm parts and only leave room for the best.”

Jason Fried: “If circumstances change, your decisions can change. Decisions are temporary.”

Nilofer Merchant: “Money, while necessary, motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. Purpose does.”

Jason Silva: “Ideas are powerful because they allow us to see the world as it could be, rather than what it is.”

Katie Kovalcin: “Put the work YOU want to be doing in your portfolio, not the work you think others want to see.”

Brian Hertzog: “The way you win as a creative person is to learn to love the work and not the applause.”

Rita Gunther McGrath: “Innovation has to become a proficiency. It can’t just be episodic; it can’t just be something we do once in a while.”

Lev Yilmaz: “Negative attitudes just amuse me more than positive ones.”

Jane Barratt: “I believe with the right tools and education, anyone can be a confident investor.”

Paul Graham: “When experts are wrong, it’s often because they’re experts on an earlier version of the world.”

Gala Darling: “It takes a very special kind of person to do something different, to loudly declare their own individual preferences.”

David Burkus: “This is a hard truth for some to accept: that a lack of resources may not be their true constraint, just a lack of resourcefulness.”

Penelope Trunk: “Remember that people will brag about what they’ve achieved, but they don’t brag about the price they paid to get it.”

William MacAskill: “Few people who have ever existed have had so much power to help others as we have today.”

Amy Vernon: “Being more connected to people all over the world, we are now obligated to help each other.”

Jon Acuff: “Ninety percent perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100 percent perfect and stuck in your head.”

Danielle LaPorte: “Desire is the engine of creation.”

Kevin Kelly: “Evolution doesn’t care about what makes sense; it cares about what works.”

Kimberly Drew: “Limiting your commitments doesn’t make you weak – it means that you’re aware of what is best for you.”

Tim Ferriss: “If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.”

Ann Friedman: “Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn’t make you look worse by comparison. It makes you better.”

Alf Rehn: “An organization that cannot unlearn will never become a learning organization.”

Miki Agrawal: “The people who bring positivity to your life are the ones you should choose to invest your energy in.”

Josh Bernoff: “Treat the reader’s time as more valuable than your own.”

Danielle Morrill: “We are what we focus on.”

Michael Hyatt: “The best moments in life happen outside your comfort zone.”

Nancy Duarte: “You are not the hero who will save the audience; the audience is your hero.”

Fred Wilson: “Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.”

Vanessa Van Edwards: “Less than 20% of people know what makes us happy.”

Benjamin Hardy: “The pursuit of happiness is getting in the way of happiness itself.”

Brooke Sellas: “The future of business is not selfish.”

Jonathan Harris: “The only way to start being asked to do something you want to do is to start doing that thing on your own.”

Marci Alboher: “More of us need a slash to describe what we do in the world.”

AJ Leon: “Good enough is never the right decision.”

Terri Trespicio: “Excuses do us more harm than good.”

Mark Schaefer: “There is only one you. You have no competition.”

Allison Fallon: “Where your passion meets their need, that is your calling.”

Rory Vaden: “Channel your emotion into the excellence of doing something rather than the mediocrity of deciding whether or not to do it.”

Kate Bolick: “Few realizations are as demoralizing as knowing that the only thing standing between you and what you want is yourself.”

Ivan Joseph: “Self-confidence is like a muscle. The more you practice, the stronger it gets.”

Amber Rae: “In order for a part of you to be born, it often requires letting some part of you die.”

Ben Horowitz: “The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.”

Elle Luna: “Just because something is valuable, doesn’t mean we need it.”

CJ Casciotta: “It’s one thing to find your voice. It’s an entirely different thing to trust it.”

Christine Carter: “You are always right where you need to be.”

Adam Westbrook: “The future demands our generation know more and understand better.”

Esther Perel: “Like dreams and works of art, fantasies are far more than what they appear to be on the surface.”

Dan Schawbel: “If you don’t know what you bring to the table, you don’t get a seat there.”

Sherry Turkle: “Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities.”

Daniel Pink: “Anytime you’re tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you’re doing and upserve instead.”

Jamie Varon: “You need to unlearn everything your culture told you about who you are and what your value is in order to do anything you desire to do with your life.”

Rory Sutherland: “A flower is a weed with an advertising budget.”

Jessica Semaan: “Momentum is when you turn your back to self-doubt and continue walking.”

Adam Grant: “If we could do things over, most of us would censor ourselves less and express our ideas more.”

Chelsea Fagan: “Save your money and your time, and spend them both wisely on the things that really deserve them.”

Jason Santa Maria: “Design is not about innovation. Design is about communication.”

Ashley C. Ford: “The battle is not to become, but to believe you already are.”

David Allen: “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

Jessica Abel: “If you procrastinate, it’s not because you’re broken. It’s because you’re facing unknowns.”

Apollo Robbins: “Persuasion or influence is the idea of controlling choices.”

Emma Gannon: “Feeling a bit nervous has always been a good thing.”

Julian Treasure: “Conscious listening creates understanding.”

Tina Seelig: “The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. Nobody will pay you to solve a non-problem.”

Darius Foroux: “You’re only wasting your life if you’re too distracted to experience it.”

Tess Vigeland: “Our lives are far too short NOT to be selfish on important and basic things.”

Paul Jun: “The cultivation of living well is only attainable through constant and never-ending practice.”

Bernadette Jiwa: “It doesn’t matter how good your idea is if nobody cares.”

Ev Williams: “The things that keep nagging at you are the ones worth exploring.”

Kelly Exeter: “We think people remember our failures, but they don’t.”

Darren Rowse: “When you’re tempted to compare yourself to someone else…compare yourself to when you started.”

Alexandra Franzen: “Constraint is not a cage…constraint is the choice that will set your best work free.”

James Clear: “Not all uses of time are equal and this simple truth can make a big difference in life.”

Keren Elazari: “Hackers can do a lot more than break things, they can bring people together.”

Yann Girard: “Focusing on results doesn’t get you results. Focusing on the actions that produce results is what produces results.”

Nicole Antoinette: “Just because something hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t.”

Troy Carter: “You’re not defined by your lows, you’re not defined by your highs.”

Rahaf Harfoush: “One of the biggest detriments to both creativity and productivity is decision fatigue.”

John Saddington: “Your life is really, really short and if you’re not working on stuff that matters… then what are you working on… and why?”

Caroline Webb: “So many of us end up drifting through our days, letting it happen to us rather than taking control.”

Eric Karjaluoto: “Lots of people ask for opportunities, but fewer take them.”