Catalyst Quotes

“Don’t Diminish Your Soul by Being Mediocre”

“There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today.”   (Mignon McLaughlin)

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“Don’t aim at success.  The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.  For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.  Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success:  you have to let it happen by not caring about it.  I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge.  Then you will live to see that in the long-run — in the long-run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”   (Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)

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“But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something?  Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you.  Mediocrity’s a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.”  (Tom Robbins)

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“The year you were born marks only your entry into the world.  Other years where you prove your worth, they are the ones worth celebrating.”   (Jarod Kintz)

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“The limits on your enlightenment come not from the age you stopped going to school but from the age you stopped being curious.”   (Neil deGrasse Tyson)

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“No matter how strongly a thing may be believed, strength of belief is no criterion of truth. But what is truth?  Perhaps a kind of belief that has become a condition of life?”   (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power)

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“Our Capacity to Love Gives Meaning to the Indifferent Universe”

“Visions haunt the mind of unforeseen things of the future.  Action is of no possibility, but meandering doubts of a stoic nature made real by the mind are persuasive enough to destroy hope.

It’s the overly-broad confusion, but not knowing what to be confused about that is the most perplexing.  Whether it is the future, the present or the past, all of the answers will never come. The uncertainty lies not in the answer, but not knowing what question to ask.

Life must have meaning, but God – if there is such a thing – is having too much fun not telling me what that is.”   (Brian Krans, A Constant Suicide)

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“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.  If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”   (Oprah Winfrey)

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“Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation.  It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe.  And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.”   (Woody Allen)

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“All I ask is one thing, and I’m asking this particularly of young people:  please don’t be cynical.  I hate cynicism, for the record, it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.

Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get.  But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”   (Conan O’Brien)

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“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”   (Paulo Coelho)

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“Two rules of success in life:            

1. Don’t tell people everything you know.”   (Anonymous)

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“Create More Urgency – Shake Up the Scene – Celebrate Everyone’s Uniqueness”

“‘I didn’t have time.’

This actually means, ‘it wasn’t important enough.’  It wasn’t a high priority, fun, distracting, profitable or urgent enough to make it to the top of the list.

Every few days, Twitter and Facebook soak up a billion hours of ‘spare’ time.  Where did that time come from?  What did we do before social media was here?  Weren’t we busy five years ago?

Running out of time is mostly a euphemism, and the smart analyst realizes that it’s a message about something else.  Time is finite, but, unlike money, time is also replenished every second.

The people you’re trying to reach are always recalibrating which meetings they go to, which shows they watch, which books they don’t read.  The solution has nothing to do with giving people more time (you can’t) and everything to do with creating more urgency, more of an itch, more desire.”   (Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog, April 30, 2014)

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“Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be.  Open up that journal and get poetic finally.  Volunteer.  Suck it up and travel.  You were not born here to work and pay taxes.  You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create.  Stop putting it off.  The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays.  Take pictures.  Scare people.  Shake up the scene.  Be the change you want to see in the world.  You’ll thank yourself for it.”   (Jason Mraz)

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“Mom always tells me to celebrate everyone’s uniqueness.  I like the way that sounds.”   (Hillary Duff)

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“Let others lead small lives, but not you.  Let others argue over small things, but not you.  Let others cry over small hurts, but not you.  Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.”   (Jim Rohn)

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“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.”   (Carl Sagan)

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“Searching for the Truth – Challenged to Change Ourselves”

“I am one of the searchers.  There are, I believe, millions of us.  We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content.  We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.  We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand.  We like to walk along the beach; we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty.  We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well.  Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter.  To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know – unless it be to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide.  Most of all we love and want to be loved.  We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give.  We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful.  It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”   (James Kavanaugh, There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves)

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“Faith is universal.  Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles.  In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.”   (Dan Brown, Angels & Demons)

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“We live in an age fit for heroes.  No time has ever offered such perils or prizes.  Man can provide a full life for humanity – or he can destroy himself with the problems he has created. The test … will be whether man confuses the growth of wealth and power with the growth of spirit and character.”   (Vince Lombardi)

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“The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.”   (Ernest Hemingway)

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“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.  And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”   (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

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“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”   (Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)

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“Make Big Plans – Choose Your Response – Be Response Able”

“Every project we undertake starts with the same question:

‘How can we do what has never been done before?’”   (Stuart Hornery, Lend Lease)

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“Make big plans … that’s the best way to make big things happen.

Write down your plans.  Share them with trusted colleagues.  Seek out team members and accomplices.

Shun the non-believers.  They won’t be easily convinced, but they can be ignored.

Is there any doubt that making big plans increases the chances that something great will happen?

Is there any doubt that we need your contribution?

Why then, are you hesitating to make big plans?”   (Seth Godin)

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“The worst moments are your best opportunity.  That’s how we judge you and how we remember you.  You are presumed to be showing us your real self when you are on deadline, have a headache, are facing a customer service meltdown, haven’t had a good night’s sleep, are facing an ethical dilemma, are momentarily in power, are caught doing something when you thought no one else was looking, are irritable, have the opportunity to extract revenge, are losing a competition or are truly overwhelmed.

What a great opportunity to tell the story you’d like us to hear about you.”   (Seth Godin)

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“To be proactive means you take the initiative to do whatever’s necessary to make good things happen.  The best way to predict your future is to create it.

The opposite of this is to be reactive; which basically means that your life is a function of your feelings, your moods, your impulses, or how other people treat you.  You feel you have ample justification to say that you are what other people have made you.  You are what your past has made you.  You are what is happening to you.  And so you don’t take responsibility.

The underlying principle of being proactive is to take responsibility.  You and I have the capacity to choose our response.

I am responsible. 

I am response able.”   (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey)

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“Strive for excellence, not perfection, because we don’t live in a perfect world.”   (Joyce Meyer)

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“When [what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be best in the world at and what drives your economic engine] come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life.  For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life.  And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution.  Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions:  knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.”   (Jim Collins, Good to Great:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t)

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“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.  Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”   (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching)

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“What Kind of Person Do You Want to Be in Life”

“You are what you want to become.  Why search anymore?

You are a wonderful manifestation.

The whole universe has come together to make your existence possible.

There is nothing that is not you.”   (Thich Nhat Hanh)

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“You don’t need anyone’s affection or approval in order to be good enough. When someone rejects or abandons or judges you, it isn’t actually about you.  It’s about them and their own insecurities, limitations, and needs, and you don’t have to internalize that.  Your worth isn’t contingent upon other people’s acceptance of you — it’s something inherent.

You exist, and therefore, you matter. You’re allowed to voice your thoughts and feelings. You’re allowed to assert your needs and take up space.  You’re allowed to hold onto the truth that who you are is exactly enough.  And you’re allowed to remove anyone from your life who makes you feel otherwise.”   (Daniell Koepke)

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“Ask yourself what kind of person you want to be in the life that you will live today.  Throughout the day, remind yourself that your life is happening right now.”   (H.H. the Karmapa)

“And maybe what growing up really means is knowing that you don’t have to be just a character, going whichever way the story says.  It’s knowing you could be the author instead.”   (Ava Dellaira)

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“10 to Zen

Let go of comparing.

Let go of competing.

Let go of judgments.

Let go of anger.

Let go of regrets.

Let go of worrying.

Let go of blame.

Let go of guilt

Let go of fear.

Have a proper belly laugh at least once a day (especially if it’s about your inability to let go of any or all of the above.)”  (BuddhaHeart)

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“Remind myself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.”   (Og Mandino)

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“So How Good Do You Want to Be?”

“Do you deserve it?

Do you deserve the luck you’ve been handed?  

The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you’ve got?  

Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?

Not at all.  ‘Deserve’ is such a loaded word.  

The question shouldn’t be, ‘do you deserve it.’  

I think it should be, ‘what are you going to do with it now that you’ve got it?’”   (Seth Godin)

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“Many people are eager to have soothsayers predict their future.  

Fewer are willing to take responsibility for writing their own fortune.  

Your future is a blank sheet of paper waiting for you to create what is to come.”   (Jim Clemmer)

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“So how good do you want to be?  All of us want to be good at our jobs, but how good do we really want to be?  Quite good.  Good.  Very good.  The best in the field.  Or the best in the world?  Talent helps, but it won’t take you as far as ambition.  … Everybody wants to be good, but not many are prepared to make the sacrifices it takes to be great.  Most people are looking for a solution, a way to become good.  There is no instant solution, the only way to learn is through experience and mistakes.  You will become whoever you want to be.

You can achieve the unachievable.  Firstly you need to aim beyond what you are capable of.

You must develop a complete disregard for where you abilities end.  Try to do the things that you’re incapable of.  If you think you’re unable to work for the best company in its sphere, make that your aim.  If you think you’re incapable of running a company, make that your aim. If you think you’re unable to be on the cover of Time magazine, make it your business to be there.  Make your vision of where you want to be a reality.  Nothing is impossible.”   (Paul Arden, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be)

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“Vision without execution is hallucination.”   (Thomas Edison)

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“No one’s life should be rooted in fear.  We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.”   (Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy)

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