"Companies and governments can find an innovator inside everyone; they just need to liberate them"

The Economist, "Something new under the Sun" A special report on Innovation, October 13th, 2007

"Stewart Brand, an internet pioneer, has famously argued that 'information wants to be free.' So surely the knowledge worker, the creator of that information, also needs the same freedom; Companies and governments can find an innovator inside everyone; they just need to liberate them."

One of my most favorite quotes.

Quote Book: Musings from all walks of life as compiled over the last seven years

The Quote Book: Musings From All Walks of Life over the last seven years

Wild Daisies - A Poem

If you love me
Bring me flowers
Wild daisies
Clutched in your fist
Like a torch
No orchids or roses
Or carnations
No florist's bow
Just daisies
Steal them
Risk your life for them
Up the sharp hills
In the teeth of the wind
If you love me
Bring me daisies
Wild daisies
That I will cram
In a bright vase
And marvel at

*Inspired by my good friend Reija
who is an example to me

Long Walk Part of Gift

Continuous effort -- not strength or intelligence -- is the key to unlocking our potential." Black Elk

The African boy listened carefully as the teacher explained why it is that Christians give presents to each other on Christmas day. “The gift is an expression of our joy over the birth of Jesus and our friendship for each other,” she said. When Christmas day came, the boy brought the teacher a sea shell of lustrous beauty. “Where did you ever find such a beautiful shell?” the teacher asked as she gently fingered the gift. The youth told her that there was only one spot where such extraordinary shells could be found. When he named the place, a certain bay several miles away, the teacher was left speechless. “Why...why, it’s gorgeous...wonderful, but you shouldn’t have gone all that way to get a gift for me.” His eyes brightening, the boy answered, “Long walk part of gift.” – Gerald Horton Bath

“Vision with out effort is daydreaming, effort without vision is drudgery, but vision coupled with effort will obtain the prize.” Thomas S. Monson

Go Get It

“Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy Now So Happy Then

“The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.” Robert Louis Stevenson

Substitute “thing” with what you want . . . .

A few months ago, I was in hot pursuit of something that I valued tremendously. I constantly told myself that if only I were to get that thing I wanted then I would be happy. It made so much sense. I know how big this thing was and I knew that it made others happy when they got it so it must be the source of their happiness. I envisioned myself with this thing and it made me happy.

Well, as fortune would have it, I actually obtained that thing I so wanted. And surprisingly to me, I was relieved, grateful, peaceful, but not comparatively happier.

After reflecting on this phenomenon, I came to the self-reflective conclusion that the state of my heart had not changed and it wouldn’t change no matter how implausible the thing I wanted. In other words, I could have won the lottery, a new pair of skis, received a 4.0 and it would not have made a difference on my heart. Sure, after obtaining this very good thing, I felt an alliviance of pressure off my shoulders, I felt peaceful and grateful but the state of my heart had stayed the same.

How ever you are happy now, will dictate how happy you are then. You must find a more constant source of happiness. You decide to be happy now. Good or bad may come and it may come hard and fast. Other things may change but your heart will stay the same.

“Obviously there is a great difference between feeling happy at a given moment and being happy for a lifetime, between having a good time and leading a good life.” James Faust

“I may not be able to eliminate pornographic trash, but my family and I need not buy or view it. I may not be able to close disreputable businesses, but I can stay away from areas of questioned honor and ill repute. I may not be able to greatly reduce the divorces of the land or save all broken homes and frustrated children, but I can keep my own home a congenial one, my marriage happy, my home a heaven, and my children well adjusted. I may not be able to stop the growing claims to freedom from laws based on morals, or change all opinions regarding looseness in sex and growing perversions, but I can guarantee devotion to all high ideals and standards in my own home, and I can work toward giving my own family a happy, interdependent spiritual life. I may not be able to stop all graft and dishonesty in high places, but I myself can be honest and upright, full of integrity and true honor, and my family will be trained likewise. I may not be able to insure family prayers, home evening, meeting attendance, and spiritual, well-integrated lives in all my neighbors, but I can be certain that my children will be happy at home. They will grow strong and tall and realize their freedom is found at home, in their faith, in clean living, and in opportunity to serve. As Christ said, “And the truth shall make you free.” No virtues in the perfection we strive for are more important than integrity and honesty. Let us then be complete, unbroken, pure and sincere, to develop in ourselves that quality of soul we prize so highly in others.” Spencer W. Kimball

Your goals are more important than theirs

Here are some quotes about goals and steadfastness:

Make a goal and strive towards that goal because you wanted it for some reason. You wanted the goal - so keep it. Nothing can stop you. Only Divinity.

“You've always got to be aware of why you don't win, otherwise you'll keep losing. Every mistake is a learning experience and, hopefully, you won't make the same mistake again.” Layne Beachley, world champion surfer

“Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.” William Hazlitt - English writer

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” Michael Jordan

“If you practice many, many times you will get good.” Anonymous

“The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.” Jacob Bronowski

“Every exit is an entrance somewhere else.” Tom Stoppard

“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abraham Lincoln

Never, never, never give up

Find below, quality quotations about never giving up:

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and the time that the tide will turn.” Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Winston Churchill

“When things go wrong as they some times will; when the road you are trudging seems all uphill, when the funds are low and the debts are high; when you want to smile but you have to sigh; when care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don't you quit. Life is queer with its twists and turns, as every one of us sometime learns; Don't give up though the pace seems slow; you might succeed with another blow. And many a failure turns about when he might have won had he stuck it out; Success is failure turned inside out--the silver lining of the cloud of doubt, and you can never tell how close you are; it may be near when it seems afar; So stick to the fight when you are hardest hit; It's when things get worse that you mustn't quit!”

“If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace, and your sleep for it...if all that you dream and scheme is about it, and life seems useless and worthless it...if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it (perfect love casteth away all fear)...if you simply go after that thing you want with all of your capacity, strength and sagacity, faith, hope and confidence and stern pertinacity...if neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout, sickness nor pain, of body or brain, can keep you away from the thing that you want...if dogged and grim you besiege and beset it, with the help of God, you will get it.” Les Brown (Live Your Dreams)

“Sometimes the physical side says give up and lie down but the better half says ‘Here I am send me.’” James E. Faust

“Think of the long view of life, not just what's going to happen today or tomorrow. Don't give up what you most want in life for something you think you want now.” Russell M. Nelson

“It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own. Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self . . . look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” C.S. Lewis (“Mere Christianity” p. 226)